Ravel, Franck, Ligeti, Messiaen

Description

It is a strong taste for discovery that drives and gives coherence to the third recital of sisters Natascia and Raffaella Gazzana to be released on ECM. Favoring French music for violin and piano, highlighting its diverse inspirations, the album also features the recording of the piece Duo composed by Gyorgy Ligeti in 1946 (dedicated to Kúrtag, and influenced by the folk traditions of Hungary and Romania). Duo Gazzana performs here the famous Sonata in A Major by César Franck written in 1886, as well as the posthumous Sonata by Maurice Ravel composed in 1897 by a musician who was then barely 22 years old. The album concludes with Theme and Variations by Olivier Messiaen, a work from 1932 that in many ways foreshadows the Quartet for the End of Time. These duo performances of pieces by Ravel, Franck, Ligeti, and Messiaen were recorded at the Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI in Lugano in March 2017 under the artistic direction of Manfred Eicher.