Tõnu Kõrvits, Robert Schumann, Edvard Grieg, Duo Gazzana

The Italian sisters Natascia and Raffaella Gazzana, violin and piano, have built their ECM New Series albums on unexpected pairings of contemporary and classic repertoire. Here two Romantic sonatas, Schumann's First and Grieg's Third, are set beside two suites by the Estonian composer Tõnu Kõrvits, born in 1969. Both Kõrvits works were written for the duo and appear here in their first recordings, and their spare, modal writing changes the way the 19th-century pieces sound around them.

The Duo Gazzana recorded the programme in November 2021 at the historic Reitstadel in Neumarkt, with Manfred Eicher producing and Markus Heiland as Tonmeister. The booklet essay is by Paul Griffiths. This follows earlier ECM albums on which the sisters paired Franck with Ligeti, Poulenc with Schnittke and Hindemith with Takemitsu, each time adding other composers to the mix.

Stalker Suite (2017) is an homage to Andrei Tarkovsky, in four short movements titled into the zone, the room, monologue and waterfall. It takes moods and reference points from Tarkovsky's film rather than quoting its soundtrack, and leans on texture and shades of tonality. The four notturni of 2014 are quieter still, songlike pieces with modal melodies. Schumann's Sonata in A minor, Op. 105, dates from 1851 and opens Mit leidenschaftlichem Ausdruck, with passion. Grieg's Sonata in C minor, Op. 45, from 1887, owes much of its constant reshaping of motifs to Schumann, which makes the pairing more than a convenience. Its middle movement is a Romanza with a quicker central section, and the finale, Allegro animato, turns at last to C major. The sisters play the Grieg lighter and more transparently than the big concert manner it often receives.

In Gramophone, Guy Rickards found the Kõrvits suites "beautifully made and beautifully rendered", with the notturni "marginally, the deeper score". Christian Carey of Sequenza 21 (2023) heard the contemporary pieces balance the Romantic ones with "a less effusive tone and tangy harmonies". Of the Grieg he wrote: "In the hands of Duo Gazzana, it turns to gold."

This is the CD edition, ECM New Series 2706, released on 18 November 2022, with liner notes by Paul Griffiths.