The Strad Magazine’s January 2020 issue features a review hailing Ilya Gringolts and Dmitry Kouzov’s Eisler, Ravel, Widmann Duos recording as “Gripping and beautifully played duos that demand committed listening”:
“bold and hugely committed performances of three very striking duos spanning almost 90 years. … Gringolts and Kouzov are as one in shaping the gestures and in pacing the [Eisler Duo]; the intensity of their playing at times suggests a pre-echo of Expressionism. … Widmann’s 24 Duos (2008) form a perfect complement. The players make the most of the slow, suspended creep and fragile dissonances in no.3 (Lento un poco Andante); the claustrophobic interplay around a narrow, shared pitch range (no.7); and of the breathtaking, eight-bar Calmo (no.9), which glows rather than ‘sounds’. There’s soul-crushing note-bending and decay in the Lament (no.24) but exuberant humour, by contrast, in the Valse bavaroise (no.21) and the concluding Toccatina all’inglese. Ravel’s Sonata (1920–22) is mined for all its austere, intrinsic beauty, and that includes the macabre second movement. Again, counterpoint is king, and again the interplay between Gringolts and Kouzov is magnetic.”
—Edward Bhesania, The Strad
See the full review on thestrad.com
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