Xenakis, Kodály, Vasks, Ravel & Bartok: Duos for Violin & Cello

Regarding the music chosen, it would be impossible not to include, in an album like this one, the two great pillars of the repertoire for these eight strings, Zoltán Kodály’s Duo and Maurice Ravel’s Sonata, an explosion of creativity after the dearth of repertoire for this kind of duo during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Both composers manage to dress their music in such an incredible way that this ensemble does not appear bare and the polyphony is complete. In contrast to these two great works, we have chosen three pieces of easier and more emotive listening which, nevertheless, we feel are representative of the different vital issues reflected in their composition; from the spiritual conflict transmitted in P. Vasks’ Castillo Interior to the popular frenzy of I. Xenakis. Closing this album is the duo’s own arrangement of Béla Bartók’s Romanian Dances, providing their own musical contribution to the repertoire for these two instruments.