Search - Nicholas DiEugenio, Mimi Solomon :: Into the Silence

Musical ideas that are passed down through tutelage and mentorship also owe a debt to the shared geological proximity that is the fruit of a community. This elegant recording by the duo of violinist Nicholas DiEugenio and pianist Mimi Solomon is an hommage to the late composer Steven Stucky but also to his longtime home of Ithaca, NY, a center for the American compositional tradition for generations of composers. With this release, the duo honors Stucky's memory through their warm and passionate premiere recording of his Sonata for Violin and Piano, but also through the premiere recording of his teacher and longtime Cornell University professor Robert Palmer's sonata, and premieres of works by two fo Stucky's most successful students, Tonia Ko and Jesse Jones. Jones' evocative...in dulcet tones unfolds with crystalline arpeggiated passages that are contrasted with long lyrical melodies. Jones skillfully negotiates different stylistic traditions, toggling between romantic pathos and impressionistic sound paintings as suits the organic unfolding of the music. Stucky's sonata engages more self-consciously with the tradition, looking particularly towards Debussy's famous work for this instrumentation and its balance between composerly manipulation of material and episodes of fantasy. The inward, occasionally impassioned ''Interlude'' serves as a bridge before the final movement's dance between con fuoco and wistful sections. Tonia Ko's Plush Earth in Four Pieces is inspired by author Vladimir Nabokov's impressions of Ithaca, his home for ten years. Ko's work is comprised of four character pieces, each exploring a different texture and affect. The first is alternatively annunciatory and insistent, the second is reminiscent of a toccata, though through a prism, the third is a study of glissandi on both instruments, and the last a meditation on clusters, trills, and ethereal ascending lines.