Sounding constellations

This CD is a "family affair" according to the booklet; this family affair has a program that is hinted at in the CD title: Constellations Ardentes - glowing constellations; this title in turn refers to the piece Ori, which the Bernese composer Jean-Luc Darbellay (*1946) wrote in 2007 for his two children Noëlle-Anne (violin, viola, voice) and Olivier (horn). Ori refers to Orion, a constellation whose center of power lies in the star Betelgeuse, a giant star a thousand times the diameter of our sun. The eleven-minute piece is like a gravitational field of sound created by the horn and violin, which orbit each other in alternating movements, shimmering, caressing and contrasting.

For the same performers, the Zurich composer Stefan Wirth (*1975) has written the piece Lunules électriques (2012) was written. In it, Wirth intended less a conversation between violin and horn than connections and fusions of the two instruments in a new sound. For example, the fluttering tongues of the horn are taken up by the tremolos of the violin, and new color combinations are constantly created in the overtone spectrum of the two instruments. Towards the end of the piece, the instruments unite in a chorale-like passage, where the violinist's voice joins the sound of the horn and violin, with a vocalise on "lunules électriques" from Rimbaud's poem Le bateau ivre.

The program is enriched by two romantic trios: the Quatre Petites Pièces by Charles Koechlin (1867-1950) and the Trio op. 40 by Johannes Brahms (1833-1897). The four miniatures by Koechlin, a pupil of Fauré, were composed between 1890 and 1909 and are a dreamy, yearning reminder of the scent of the turn of the century. The version for the standard instrumentation, violin, horn and piano, was followed by another with viola instead of violin, and the work has been recorded here in this rarely heard, extraordinarily beautiful version.

The focus of the CD is on Brahms' Opus 40 for piano, violin and French horn. He wrote the thoughtful trio in a mood of deepest mourning over the death of his mother.

The interpretation is a stroke of luck: the two Darbellay siblings are joined by the excellent Swiss pianist Benjamin Engeli, who also comes from a family of musicians. The three of them play together powerfully, subtly and technically flawlessly.