Music for two violins without accompaniment might seem a bit thin for a full-length CD, but with a little accommodation for the limited pitch range and textures available to a violin duo, listeners can quickly adjust and appreciate the works on this 2005 album from CPO. Violinists
Thomas Christian and Daniela Preimesberger are ideally balanced in tone and fabulously coordinated in their execution, and at some points it almost feels as if they play with a single bow arm, so exact is their timing. Because these musicians are on equal footing as virtuosi, and more importantly, because they are sympathetically communicative, they make this disc pleasurable, even if its selections are uneven in musical merit. It is possible to enjoy all three works in one sitting, but admirers of Eugène Ysaÿe's Romantically sentimental Sonate for two violins, Op. posth., may find it in peculiar company with
Darius Milhaud's dryly neo-Baroque Duo and the pungent Sonatina for two violins, as well as with Arthur Honegger's eccentrically meandering and vaguely irritating Sonatine. Yet with the homogenous tone of two violins and their limitations, changes of mood and style are necessary to sustain interest; and if not all of the pieces are worthwhile, at least
Christian and Preimesberger can be praised for trying to present a varied and interesting program. CPO's sound quality is superb.