Duo Sessions: Julia Fischer, violin, and Daniel Müller-Schott, Cello play the following music on this recording:
Halvorsen:
Passacaglia for Violin & Cello/Viola (after Handel)
Kodály:
Duo for Violin and Cello, Op. 7
Ravel:
Sonata for Violin & Cello
Schulhoff:
Duo for violin & cello
All performed by Julia Fischer (violin) and Daniel Müller-Schott (cello)
The works heard in this program – some of the most important works written for violin and cello – were written surprisingly late. The Kodály was composed in 1914; Ravel in 1922; Schulhoff, 1925.
Although these three works can scarcely be regarded as avant-garde for their time, at least where their tonality is concerned, a new spirit was in the air: a freely ranging search on all levels for new forms and means of expression, coupled with a love of experimentation with extremely sparse scoring.
Of course, the pioneering work in a distinctive violin-cello repertoire was surely written a generation earlier: Brahms’ concerto for this ‘eight-stringed giant’ of 1887. It was a performance of his work that brought Julia Fischer and Daniel Müller-Schott together on the concert platform for the first time.
The Guardian wrote:
“they play [the Ravel and the Kodály] with such energy, engagement and virtuoso precision that there’s never any hint of overfamiliarity; in both works, every detail of the extremely demanding string writing is carefully etched, and captured with tingling immediacy in the recording.”
Here is the Double Concerto by Johannes Brahms:
