Following her lyrical and witty complete recording of Mozart’s Keyboard Sonatas, issued by naïve in March 2023, Yeol Eum Son invites Svetlin Roussev to join her in the enticingly subtle harmonic intricacies of Germanic post-Romanticism entitled Love Music.

For their second recital as a duo, the Bulgarian violinist and the Korean pianist follow the course taken by works written over a period of slightly more than half a century by composers or famous performers upon whom Richard Wagner exercised crucial influence.

They take on almost every genre - cinema, opera, chamber music, transcription - treating it in the lyrical, large-scale manner of the Bayreuth master.

During their unexpected, fascinating journey, Svetlin Roussev and Yeol Eum Son chart a variety of pathways, from Waxman to Strauss.

1. Waxman, F: Tristan and Isolde Fantasia
2. Korngold: Glück, das mir verbleib Marietta’s Lied (from Die Tote Stadt)
3. Korngold: Much Ado About Nothing, Op. 11: suite for violin (or cello) & piano
4. Kreisler: Alt-Wiener Tanzweisen
5. Strauss, R: Violin Sonata in E flat major, Op. 18
6. Wagner: Träume (No. 5 from Wesendonck-Lieder)

Featuring music by Waxman, Korngold, Kreisler, Richard Strauss and Wagner, their delightfully impassioned new recording opens the delicate gossamer of Moderately Slow (from Franz Waxman’s Tristan and Isolde Fantasia) and then backs that up with a pair from Erich Wolfgang Korngold: the languishing beauty found within Langsam (Version for Violin and Piano) from Glück, das mir verbleib Marietta’s Lied (from Die Tote Stadt) and the quartet from Much Ado About Nothing, Op. 11: suite for violin (or cello) & piano - the stirring Maiden in the Bridal Chamber, the more strident affair of Dogberry and Verges. March of the Watch, the sheer elegance of Scene in the Garden, culminating on the playfully perky Masquerade. Hornpipe.

Their take on almost every genre – cinema, opera, chamber music, transcription - continues onward with a trio from Fritz Kreisler’s Alt-Wiener Tanzweisen, the veritably cinematic swirls and twirls within Liebesfreud, Allegro, the congenial fare of Liebesleid, Tempo di Landler, and finally we get brought forth the nurtured elegance of Schön Rosmarin, Grazioso.

However, the keystone of the program is unarguably the magnificent Sonata for Violin and Piano that Richard Strauss composed in 1887, Violin Sonata in E flat major, Op. 18, whose trio we listen to now are the intricately woven Allegro, ma non troppo, the aching yearn of Improvisation, Andante cantabile and the sombre fare, at first, yet later flourishing notes that reside within Finale: Andante Allegro, the collection closing on Richard Wagner’s emphatic-hued Träume (No. 5 from Wesendonck-Lieder).

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