20th Century Duos for Violin and Cello

Copy at Case Memorial Library
Anthony Tommasini wrote in the New York Times: "A recording of three seldom-heard works for an unconventional combination of instruments might seem a risky venture. But the music is terrific and the performances compelling on this surprisingly exciting and excellently engineered recording. Kodaly is probably best known as the composer who worked with Bartok exploring and documenting authentic Hungarian and Eastern European folk music. Kodaly’s 1915 Sonata for Solo Cello, an audacious, moody and demanding work, is starting to become a staple of the cello repertory. This new recording should bring overdue attention to Kodaly’s 1914 Duo for Violin and Cello, a formidable 25-minute piece in three movements. … The Kodaly effectively sets up Sessions’s 1978 Duo, a concentrated 10-minute work of extreme contrasts, shifting meters and rigorous manipulation of motifs. In this company, despite dreamy Impressionistic episodes, Ravel’s inventive 20-minute Sonata, completed in 1922, comes across as a fully contemporary work, alive with angular counterpoint and insistent rhythmic drive" (6/1/08).