Duo Gazzana to Showcase Tõnu Kõrvits’ Music

This coming Friday, ECM New Series will release its fourth recording by the Italian sisters Natascia Gazzana (violin) and Raffaella Gazzana (piano), performing under the name Duo Gazzana. I have not followed their work closely; but their last release dates all the way back to 2018, presenting a program of compositions by Maurice Ravel, César Franck, György Ligeti, and Luigi Dallapiccola. If nothing else, they deserve high marks for eclecticism!

The new album, which is currently available for pre-orders from Amazon.com, highlights the Estonian composer Tõnu Kõrvits. It features works composed in 2017 (Stalker Suite) and 2014 (“notturni”), both of which were composed for Duo Gazzana. Each of these recent works is paired with music from the second half of the nineteenth century. The Stalker suite is followed by Robert Schumann’s Opus 105 (first) duo sonata in A minor; and “notturni” is coupled with Edvard Grieg’s Opus 45 (third) duo sonata in C minor. (The Amazon.com Web page currently has “preview” tracks from both Stalker and the Grieg sonata, which are available for sampling.)

The suite was composed as an homage to the filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. Back when I was living in Palo Alto, I remember making video tapes of a series of broadcasts of Tarkovsky’s films. It would be fair to say that watching any single film in that collection was mentally exhausting. However, many of them have had significant impact on other filmmakers, one of whom, Jonathan Nolan, drew upon Stalker during his work on making Westworld for HBO. It is also worth noting that there are several ECM releases of an “advanced” jazz combo called Tarkovsky Quartet, led by pianist François Couturier, who performs with Anja Lechner on cello, Jean-Marc Larché on soprano saxophone, and Jean-Louis Matinier on accordion.

In spite of those observations and connections, I feel that there is a risk of overthinking Tarkovsky and the films he made; and Stalker Suite strikes me as one of those acts of overthinking. As a listener, I find myself more comfortable with “notturni” and its own approach to “nocturnal rhetoric.” Nevertheless, where Kõrvits is concerned, my jury is still out; and the members of that jury seem to find their comfort zone in the nineteenth century.