Once a year, my old friend Franz Xaver Ohnesorg surprises me with a 2-CD sampler of live recordings from the Ruhr Piano Festival, by acclamation the most important event of its kind. Each season offers some 70 concerts in over 30 halls across the map of North Rhine-Westphalia, a polyurban sprawl that is home to a population of 5 million. Between marquee names and stars of tomorrow, Xaver's rosters never fail to stagger the imagination. His latest package, Edition Klavier-Festival Ruhr, Vol. 39: 250 Jahre Ludwig van Beethoven, showcases four young women from the former Eastern bloc playing miscellanea too peripheral for exposure in mainstream recital programs.

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J.S. Bach's Olympian Concerto for Two Violins in D minor BWV 1043 and Béla Bartók's pedagogical 44 Duos for Two Violins, Sz. 98, BB 104 notwithstanding, violin duos have never really been much of a thing. As String Noise, the husband-and-wife fiddling team of Conrad Harris and Pauline Kim Harris set out to change that, at least within their own bubble. To celebrate their tenth anniversary, they've released no fewer than three new CD's. We checked out a track from each.

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Rhapsodizing at the ivories came to Franz Liszt more naturally than the monastic tedium of setting notes down on paper. By the lights of a mistress, he was no better than a fainéant, or a slacker, a scandalous underachiever. Nonetheless, he churned out no end of original music, often in the most labor-intensive choral and symphonic forms.

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Sorry folks! Recap of last Sunday's "Catch of the Day" was supposed to have included audio of the chat with Hilary Hahn on Einojuhani Rautavaara's Serenades. But I forgot to attach the file. That omission has now been fixed, if you'd care to check the updated post. Here's the link.

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It's always a special pleasure to welcome an artist we admire to our studio. This time our guest was the trail-blazing American violinist Hilary Hahn, whose forthcoming album Parisconcludes with the world-premiere recordings of the final musical thoughts of Einojuhani Rautavaara, pieces written for her that came to light only after the composer's death. Though the Finnish master knew Hilary's playing and had written music for her before, the two never met. I, on the other hand, who could never hope to play his music, had had occasion to visit him and write about his work several times (as here). The complementary perspectives made for a lively exchange (link to the audio of the talk segment above).

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