Renaud & Gautier Capucon Face à face: Duos for Violin & Cello

This is a recording to induce smiles of incredulity, admiration, and delight. The Capuçon brothers are dazzling virtuosos who revel in their technical prowess with unabashed, sometimes mischievous relish; their tone is simply gorgeous: rich, vibrant, and intense, and they have the impetuosity, exuberance and abandon that befits their youth. (Renaud was born in 1976, Gautier in 1981, in Chambery, France.) The recording is designed to display every aspect of their matchless virtuosity, but equally astonishing are their uncanny rapport and unanimity and the homogeneity of their tone: they trade phrases and take over lines literally imperceptibly, and at times, especially when the cellist plays high up on the A and the violinist on the G-string, one cannot tell which instrument is playing what. The program includes a world premiere: Eric Tanguy's Sonata, written for the brothers and tailored to their strengths: two marathon run-around movements flanking a dark, passionate, slow one, all full of close interplay between the instruments. Kodály's familiar, very difficult Duo, played with great idiomatic empathy, unbridled temperament and mournful lamentation, exploits all the instruments' resources of colors and sound effects. The less familiar Duo by Erwin Schulhoff is equally difficult; with its wildly contrasting moods, abrupt changes of character and improvisatory freedom it has a powerful emotional impact. The program begins and ends with brilliant fireworks: Handel-Halvorsen's "Passacaglia," tossed off with playful nonchalance, and "Variations brillantes sur God Save the King," by two virtuosos: violinist Joseph Ghys and cellist Adrien Servais. (It is tempting to imagine that each wrote his own part.) Prefaced by a solemn, operatic Introduction, the five variations are the last word in acrobatics; the pyrotechnics are so incredible that the piece sounds like a parody of its own genre. Naturally, the playing is absolutely stunning. --Edith Eisler