Klezmer and Bach

With their debut CD The Silence Between, violinist Pieter van Loenen and pianist Tobias Borsboom have successfully put themselves on the map. The CD received glowing reviews in the press. The two musicians from The Hague play the Violin Sonata Shostakovich wrote for David Oistrakh in 1968. This richly layered piece resounds with Jewish klezmer, but also pays homage to Bach: the final movement is an impressive chaconne.

Shostakovich composed his violin sonata in a period of of cultural thawing which enabled Igor Stravinsky to return to his homeland in 1962 after many decades away. Stravinsky brought back childhood memories of the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, where his father was a singer, in Le Baiser de la fée. He summarised this ballet from 1928, with its idiosyncratic Tchaikovsky arrangements, in a sparkling divertimento for violin and piano. In 1977, Arvo Pärt wrote Fratres, one of his best works.