Paul Huang, Helen Huang - Mirrors: Poulenc, Pärt, Prokofiev (2025)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 250 Mb | Total time: 56:18 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Naïve | # V8617 | Recorded: 2024
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 250 Mb | Total time: 56:18 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Naïve | # V8617 | Recorded: 2024
The two main violin sonatas on this 2025 release share a grim quality that has perhaps resulted in their being less often performed among the chamber output of the two composers, Poulenc and Prokofiev. There is nothing in the music that explicitly refers to war, yet there is a tense quality, especially striking in the sonata of the normally gallant Poulenc, that surely marks their origin during World War II, and violinist Paul Huang ominously says that, in addition to the title of Arvo Pärt's Spiegel im Spiegel, the music "is almost like a mirror image of the time we are living in now."