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Fauré: Après un rêve / Lalo: Espérance
María Dueñas, violin; Itamar Golan, piano
Deutsche Grammophon (2022-23)
No stranger to Canada, María Dueñas made her mark in Montreal at the age of 16, as a contestant in the 2019 CMIM Violin edition. Not long thereafter, she performed a prize-winning interpretation of Edouard Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnole at the Menuhin Competition and landed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon. She continues to receive invitations to play with leading orchestras, including the TSO. To the sheer delight of audiences in Toronto, Ottawa, New York and Chicago, her fiery performances of the Symphonie Espagnole this past February cracked the pandemic’s hold on TSO touring under the baton of Gustavo Gimenez.
In January, Deutsche Grammophon released performances of Lalo and Fauré for violin and piano. Pairing Dueñas with pianist Itamar Golan was a stroke of brilliance. (Golan is a solo and chamber pianist, as well as a professor at the Paris Conservatoire.) As a musical partnership, their finely calibrated balance delivers interpretations that expertly resonate with maturity, warmth and tenderness. The duo represents the very best of synergistic collaborative piano and strings.
A violinist and son of a music critic, Lalo studied at the Paris Conservatoire. His concertos (violin and cello) are known for their colourful folk melodies and romantic flavour. This recording (Deux Impromptus, Op. 4/1: Espérance, released Jan. 27, 2023) enhances our understanding of another aspect of Lalo’s repertoire, also comprising these stylistic elements. Dueñas’s countless magic moments shape each phrase. Kudos to Dueñas and Golan for placing this work as a marker on the musicological map.
While there have been many excellent recent releases of Fauré’s Après un rêve, notably for piano and cello, the version by Dueñas and Golan (released Sept. 30, 2022) is simply incomparable. Every note counts, as does the silence between the notes to create the ethereal phrasing. It is simply a must-have.
This page is also available in / Cette page est également disponible en:
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