Description
Violinist Annemarie Astrom and fortepianist Anna Kuvaja release Spirits of Spring, a new album that brings the Nordic musical language and European tradition together in a rare interpretation on period instruments. Spirits of Spring presents the evolutionary arc of chamber music from the sparse notation of Classicism to the fully written-out expression of the Romantic era. The album opens with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Sonata in G major, K. 379, a work radiating drama, playfulness and beauty, followed by a virtuosic and fantasia-like Sonata in D major, VB 159, by Joseph Martin Kraus, known as the "Swedish Mozart". In both works, Anna Kuvaja plays a Michael Walker replica of a 1795 Anton Walter fortepiano, using the era-appropriate Young-Vallotti tuning system (A1 = 430 Hz). For the Romantic repertoire, Kuvaja switches to an original, more resonant 1862 Erard fortepiano owned by Nya Paviljongen in Kauniainen, tuned to equal temperament. The duo interprets the lyrical Adagio in E major, H. 72, composed by a 17-year-old Fanny Hensel, as well as their own sensitive arrangements of Felix Mendelssohn's songs Suleika, Fruhlingslied and Scheidend. The album concludes with Danish composer Niels W. Gade's robust and virtuosic Sonata No. 2 in D minor, Op. 21, dedicated to Robert Schumann.
