Duo Concertante (Nancy Dahn, violin & Timothy Steeves, piano) is celebrating almost three a long time of worldwide touring and performing with a brand new launch. Maier Franck Schumann: Violin Sonatas can be launched on the Delphian Data label on August 22.
The repertoire focuses on the Romantic sonata and its expressive potentialities.
Robert Schumann wrote his Sonata No. 1 in a mere 4 days in 1851. The work pushes the envelope relating to notions of Classical restraint propriety. The emotional depth of the Sonata would show inspirational to generations of future composers.
Amanda Maier’s B minor Sonata was composed in 1874, and gained a prize from the Swedish Artwork Music Society. César Franck’s a lot liked A significant Sonata rounds out the album.
Duo Concertante (Nancy Dahn, violin & Timothy Steeves, piano): The Interview
They’ve been a private {and professional} duo for many years. “I assume 1998,” says Dahn. “That’s a very long time in the past.” It’s after they formally turned Duo Concertante, performing ensemble.
“On the very starting, we thought we’d begin out by studying the Beethoven Kreutzer Sonata. Why not begin with probably the most tough?” she laughs.
Actually, toughing it out over a tough piece could be a precursor to an excellent working relationship. As they started to tour and carry out collectively repeatedly, they agreed on a twin concentrate on commonplace repertoire and new music.
“It’s been a very wealthy expertise specializing in each,” Nancy provides.
The Duo has commissioned greater than 65 unique works from Canadian and worldwide composers over their profession as an ensemble, together with Chan Ka Nin, R. Murray Schafer, Kati Agócs, Andrew Staniland, Kelly-Marie Murphy, Alice Ho, Omar Daniel, Linda Bouchard, and Jean Lesage, amongst many others.
The Tuckamore Competition
The couple based the Tuckamore Chamber Music Competition, based mostly in St. John’s Newfoundland, in 2001. The 2025 version passed off from June 23 to July 6. This system included 25 live shows unfold throughout 25 venues within the area.
“This yr, we celebrated our twenty fifth competition. That was type of thrilling, 25 years,” Steven says.
They’ve expanded on their standard summer time programming to incorporate a couple of extra live shows all through the season. “We now have an enormous academic competition as effectively,” Steeves says. This yr’s cohort included 23 younger string gamers and pianists who labored with seasoned artists. He reviews that a few of these budding musical partnerships will lead to excursions and performances later this yr.
“This yr, for the twenty fifth yr competition, we actually went loopy,” Nancy provides. That included an extra 37 live shows throughout all the province, incorporating Labrador, and so far as Hopedale. “These actually distant communities,” she says. “Newfoundland is big. Simply attending to the opposite facet is 10 hours in your automobile. It was a good way to have a good time 25 years.”
Lots of these live shows have been essentially held in smaller venues, however they have been routinely stuffed with appreciative audiences.
“The audiences have been actually hungry to listen to classical,” Dahn says.
The Repertoire
The music on the album is available in half from their historical past of performing collectively.
“We’ve performed a few of these quite a bit,” Nancy notes. “The Franck Sonata — it’s been a pillar of our repertoire.”
“We’ve been taking part in the Schumann for about 20 or 25 years,” Steeves says.
“For me personally, I didn’t recognize the genius of Schumann till later in life,” Nancy provides. “It took me some time residing together with his work to acknowledge his uniqueness.”
The variations captured on the album are interpreted with years of expertise. Maier’s Sonata is the outlier.
“Maier could be very recent,” Timothy says. “Terrific piece. She was a superb violinist and a tremendous composer.” As he factors out, and customary for the time, as soon as Amanda married and had kids, any skilled aspirations have been put aside. The Swedish violinist and composer died on the younger age of 41 in 1894.
Her work suits neatly between Schumann and Franck.
“It enhances the Schumann,” Timothy says.
Nancy notes that the work of the uncared for composer first got here to her consideration by way of a thesis that had been written on Maier. One in all her violin college students at Memorial College realized the Sonata.
“I stated to Tim, , it is a actually, actually nice piece,” Dahn remembers. “We play it quite a bit now.”
“It’s a very nice piano piece too,” Steeves provides. “The 2 devices work collectively actually, very well. It’s actually thrilling to hearken to and a whole lot of enjoyable to play.”
“She wrote this piece when she was 23. It’s simply astounding,” says Nancy. “There’s already a very particular person voice there, a persona.”
It’s one other of the rising variety of works which were rediscovered and/or revived after generally centuries of neglect relating to illustration within the conventional canon of classical music.
“It’s not likely true, the best way we expect, that the items we’ve ended up right this moment are actually the best items, as a result of it hasn’t been an excellent taking part in subject in any respect,” Dahn states.
From a 2023 efficiency:
Beloved Franck
“I believe the Franck particularly — we’ve journeyed by way of the Franck.” As he factors out, César Franck’s Violin Sonata in A Main was written as a marriage current for virtuoso Eugène Ysaÿe in 1886.
The music is commonly interpreted as describing a long run relationship from early ardour to disillusionment to studying to reside collectively in concord.
“It’s all within the piece,” Nancy says.
It’s all the time been on their record of works to document, but it surely offered some distinctive challenges.
“I believe that we’ve simply come to grasp it higher over time,” Kahn says. “It was exhausting to search out the fitting match with different items. It’s a masterpiece by itself.”
For the ensemble, the recording represents an opportunity to work on music they have been captivated with.
“All through your profession, individuals are typically suggesting, oh why don’t you document this,” he says. There may be typically an emphasis on what’s new and fascinating “After 30 years, I do know that Franck is a very common piece, and the Schumann is a well-known piece, however we’re not getting any youthful,” he laughs. “The Franck’s been on that record for a very long time.”
Recording in Edinburgh
“The precise recording course of, we recorded it in Edinburgh and it was fabulous,” Steeves says.
The recording have been captured in Greyfriars Kirk, a Church of Scotland cathedral based in 1620. On the recording day, there was a throng of vacationers on the road. “What we discovered was, JK Rowling had written Harry Potter throughout the road,” he says.
Delphian, their document firm, made positive the added road noise didn’t make it into the recording.
“They’re fabulous to work with,” Timothy provides.
The Scottish recording firm connection stems from his research in Germany. A trainer retired to Scotland and recorded with Delphian. A merely inquiry from Timothy was all it took to be signed with the Edinburgh-based firm.
“Edinburgh is such an unimaginable place,” Nancy says.
Their recording Maier Franck Schumann can be accessible on Amazon on August 22, 2025 [HERE] and by way of Delphian Data [HERE].
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Anya Wassenberg is the Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. Beforehand, she was a contract author with a specialty in tradition and journey for 3 a long time, and a artistic writing teacher for Ontariolearn.
