Julia Fischer; Daniel Müller-Schott - Duo Sessions

Information

Composer: Zoltán Kodály; Erwin Schulhoff; Maurice Ravel; Johan Halvorsen

• (01-03) Kodály - Duo for Violin and Cello, Op. 7
• (04-07) Schulhoff - Duo for Violin and Cello
• (08-11) Ravel - Sonata for Violin and Cello, M. 73
• (12) Halvorsen - Passacaglia after a Theme of Handel

Julia Fischer, violin
Daniel Müller-Schott, cello

Date: 2016
Label: Orfeo

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Review

There’s plenty to enjoy here, though Julia Fischer and Daniel Müller-Schott virtually duplicate a programme that Nigel Kennedy and Lynn Harrell put out some years ago for EMI/Warner. As so often is the case, comparisons are instructive. Harrell and Kennedy opt for a marginally more deliberate tempo in the Très vif second movement of the Ravel Duo, though I preferred Harrell’s expressive way at the start of the Lent third movement. Müller-Schott all but suspends vibrato – a gesture that suggests a certain level of sensual bliss – but I’d rather stick with Harrell’s warmth and Kennedy’s heartfelt response to him. Fischer initially mirrors Müller-Schott’s affectedness but thankfully tempers it somewhat as the musical line proceeds.

There’s not much to choose between the two teams in the finale, whereas at the start of Kodály’s Duo Kennedy’s natural penchant for folk-style music lends a spot of added pungency to his attack, and when it comes to the gypsy-style fiddle solo over a cello drone at 4'24" into the finale (Fischer/Müller-Schott) or 4'34" (Kennedy/Harrell), Kennedy captures the music’s sense of improvisation to a T. Fischer sounds just a little too formal, even urbane. Talking in conversation about Erwin Schulhoff’s Duo of 1925 (in the booklet), she’s admirably honest about how she finds certain passages elusive, whether slow or fast, though I’d never have guessed as much had I not read the interview before listening to the CD. The fast Zingaresca has real drive, the finale a dogged, insistent quality.

Filling out their CD, Kennedy and Harrell add a Bach two-part Invention and the brilliant ‘encore’ that Fischer and Müller-Schott also include, the Passacaglia after Handel by Halvorson. Kennedy and Harrell open the piece emphatically and stretch its duration a minute beyond that of Fischer and Müller-Schott. Kennedy and Harrell offer a far more eventful reading, opting to turn some of the slower music into a shimmering tremolando. Fischer and Müller-Schott, on the other hand, rest content with the odd added embellishment, though both employ sul ponticello.

Choosing between the two duos is difficult but for me the presence of Schulhoff’s enigmatic work on the new CD is a little too much of a draw to resist. Paradoxically, were that not the case, I’d incline more towards Kennedy and Harrell, simply because they throw themselves at the Ravel and Kodály works with such wholehearted abandon. Fischer and Müller-Schott are evidently en route to the same destination but they never quite get there.

-- Rob Cowan, Gramophone

More reviews:
BBC Music Magazine  PERFORMANCE: ***** / RECORDING: *****
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2016/Dec/Duo_sessions_C902161A.htm
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jul/27/kodaly-duo-ravel-sonata-etc-review-julia-fischer-daniel-muller-schott
https://www.allmusic.com/album/duo-sessions-mw0002969714
https://www.amazon.com/Duo-Sessions-Daniel-M%C3%BCller-Schott/dp/B01HP611AE

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Julia Fischer (born 15 June 1983 in Munich) is a German classical violinist and pianist. She studied with Lydia Dubrowskaya at the Leopold Mozart Conservatory in Augsburg and Ana Chumachenco at the Munich Academy of Music. Her active repertoire spans from Bach and Vivaldi to Penderecki and Shostakovich, containing over 40 works with orchestra and about 60 works of chamber music. On 1 January 2008, Fischer had her public debut as a pianist, performing Edvard Grieg's Piano Concerto. Currently, she plays on a Guadagnini 1742 purchased in May 2004, and a violin by Philipp Augustin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Fischer

http://www.juliafischer.com/index.php/en/

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Daniel Müller-Schott (born 1976 in Munich, Germany) is a German cellist. He studied with Walter Nothas, Heinrich Schiff, Steven Isserlis and had one year studying with Mstislav Rostropovich. Aged 15, he aroused enthusiasm by winning the first prize in the International Tchaikovsky Competition for young musicians in Moskow in 1992. Müller-Schott has already built up a sizeable discography under the ORFEO, Deutsche Grammophon, Hyperion, Pentatone and EMI Classics labels, collaborated with artists such as Anne-Sophie Mutter and Angela Hewitt. He plays a cello by Matteo Goffriller, Venice, 1727.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_M%C3%BCller-Schott

http://www.daniel-mueller-schott.com/en/

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