Wilfred Strehle - Works for Viola & Piano - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Internationally respected musicians Daniel Palmizio (viola) and Nicolas van Poucke (piano) join forces in a double-album featuring Bach's complete gamba sonatas and Brahms two clarinet sonatas. Palmizio (recently described as a player of 'instrumental mastery' characterized by 'unselfconscious refinement') and Van Poucke ('a truly poetic musician') met at a festival in Zeeland, The Netherlands and have since worked together for several years. This album is the fruit of a deep friendship and shared love for music. Their approach to the music of both Bach and Brahms is equally steeped in tradition of the virtuosos of the golden era as it is forward looking and original. On a 17th century Testore (equipped with open gut strings) and a modern Steinway, Palmizio and Van Poucke, uncompromising in expressive intensity and counter-punctual clarity, shine a new bright light on sonatas by Bach and Brahms.

Johanna Senfter (1879-1961) Works for viola and piano - In the male-dominated world of the time, in which women who performed and composed required special assertive skills, Johanna Senfter consciously refrained from a career in the wider world and limited her creative field to her birthplace of Oppenheim am Rhein near Mainz, not least because of her unstable health as a result of a severe bout of diphtheria in her childhood. This pragmatic self-limitation has given way to an interesting, decades-long debate, not least because her compositional legacy at the Cologne Musikhochschule is available to all interested researchers and musicians and has led to new editions or first recordings of her compositions.

?Peijun Xu, born in Shanghai, is one of the leading violists of her generation. As a soloist, Peijun Xu has performed in renowned venues such as the Shanghai Concert Hall, the Laeiszhalle Hamburg or the Alte Oper Frankfurt. Her chamber music partners include Paul Rivinius, Evgenia Rubinova, Alexander Sitkovetsky and Veit Hertenstein. German violist Veit Hertenstein plays with Inchbrigthly ringing, luminous and finly finessed sound (The Strad Magazine 2022) Veit Hertenstein is Professor for Viola at the Musikhochschule Detmold, Germany since 2015.