Prokofiev: Sonata for Two Violins in C Major, Op. 56

Janine Jansen has been a top-selling artist since her debut recording in 2004 for Decca sold 300,000 records. A major star in Europe, especially the Netherlands, Jansen has frequently topped the classical charts and featured in the pop charts.

For this release, Jansen is accompanied in the concerto by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under its Russian-born Principal Conductor Vladimir Jurowski. When she played the work with the LPO in London as part of its 2012 “Prokofiev: Man of the People?” festival, The Times hailed her as “a violinist who is right now on matchless form … a player that you follow wherever she leads”

Composed in the mid1930s, on the eve of his return to the USSR, Prokofiev’s much-loved Violin Concerto No.2 boasts the same accessible tunefulness and emotional directness as his enduringly popular ballet Romeo and Juliet, whose love music is ravishingly recalled in the soaring, songlike lyricism of the concerto’s slow central movement. For contrast the concerto is coupled with two chamber works conceived in the same decade: the stark yet expressive Sonata for Two Violins (1932) and the darkly tragic Violin Sonata No.1 (1938–46), which constitutes the composer’s covert memorial to those many friends and colleagues lost during Stalin’s Great Terror and the subsequent World War.

The Pavel Haas Quartet, one of the very finest chamber ensembles of the present time, earned for their first two CDs of the quartets of Janácek and Pavel Haas numerous prestigious accolades (Classic FM Gramophone Award, BBC Music Magazine Award, Cannes MIDEM Classical Award, etc.).

With the Prokofiev pieces featured on this album the Quartet has for the first time entered the field of the Russian (or, if you will, international) repertoire. Prokofiev plunged into writing his first quartet in 1930 during his first sojourn in America on the basis of a commission from the Library of Congress in Washington DC.

The “classical” sounding work blends the easily distinguishable inspiration by Beethoven’s quartets and the typically Prokofievian pungency and lyricism. The duet, written in Paris, is an inconspicuous yet masterly small-scale work of art and alongside Bartok’s 44 violin duets ranks among the paramount opuses of this genre.

The second quartet came into being in 1941 in the Caucasus, where the Soviet government had moved the artistic elites and their families so as to protect them against the Nazi onslaught. Here Prokofiev came across untouched folk material which he sensitively, humbly and with the precise degree of artistic stylisation incorporated into the “Kabardinian” quartet.

Their sheer musicality and ferocious youthful energy make the Pavel Haas Quartet an ideal interpreter of these gems of Prokofiev’s chamber oeuvre.

The Ruysdael Quartet was formed in 1996, when the members met at the Hague Conservatoire. They studied with the Alban Berg Quartet over a two year period and within a few years, established their name both in the Netherlands and abroad. They have been regularly invited to take part in festivals and masterclasses.

Enjoy the intimacy and virtuosity of the debut recording by Russian violinist Stanislav (Stass) Pronin. This engaging new release of solo violin works truly exposes the world to this exciting new talent.

Pronin also exhibits his concentration and prowess by performing both parts on the Prokofiev Sonata for Two Violins.

Despite his young age, Stanislav Pronin has already established himself as one of the most brilliant violinists of his generation.

Born in Moscow, Mr. Pronin can trace his musical lineage to the great school of Odessa trained violinists. His first teacher was his grandfather, Veniamin Pronin, who was a professor of violin at the Odessa Conservatory and a pupil of the renowned pedagogue Pyotr Stoliarsky, teacher of David Oistrakh and Nathan Milstein. Among his grandfather’s close friends and colleagues were violinist Leonid Kogan, pianist Emil Gilels and the great Russian composer Dmitry Shostakovich.

Mr. Pronin maintains a busy performance and recording schedule. His performances range from solos with orchestras to solo and chamber recitals worldwide. He has performed in many music festivals and concert venues, including Carnegie Hall and the Miller Theatre in New York City, Dekelboum Hall in Washington, D.C., the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Canada, Rathaussaal Forchheim in Nuremberg, Germany, the Perlman Theatre in Philadelphia and many others. He has frequently performed on television and radio in the United States, Canada, Europe and Israel, including live broadcasts of the Interlochen Public Radio Station and the WFMT Chicago Classical Radio station. He has performed under the baton of many eminent conductors such as Herbert Blomstedt, Ronald Zollman, Sigiswald Kuijken, John Adams and Leonard Slatkin. Mr. Pronin is also an avid chamber musician, and has engaged in chamber music with internationally-renowned musicians such as Jaime Laredo, James Campbell, Mark Kaplan, Orion String Quartet, Victor Danchenko, Anton Nel, Julian Milkis, Emille Naoumoff and Lera Auerbach.

Mr. Pronin is the recipient of multiple awards from the American String Teachers Association, America-Israel Cultural Foundation, Canada Council for the Arts and Classical Artists Development Foundation. He performs on a Nicola Bergonzi violin from 1785, and the ex-Ysaÿe, ex-Flesch Voirin bow, generously on loan from a private sponsor from Michigan.

‘From my father, Hu Wei Ming, a violinist and professor at the Sichuan Conservatory in Chengdu, I learned all the Violin duets by BÉLA BARTÓK at a very early age, and came to love them. When I discovered the close relationship between Bartók’s Hungarian folk traditions and the folk traditions of China, I was greatly surprised: the peasant songs of Sichuan’s minority people, the Yi, were very much like Hungarian folk music!’ Zen Hu These early discoveries were of decisive importance in leading me to undertake an unusual musical journey, together with Ning Feng. We hope that with this CD, we can encourage and support the mutual understanding between China and Europe.’ from liner notes by Zen Hu Zen Hu and Ning Feng - both born in Chengdu, China - started their early studies at Sichuan Conservatory of Music. Zen Hu, prize winner at the National Chinese Violin Competition, became at a very young age the first Chinese member of Munich Philharmonic Orchestra.

Ning Feng, recently won First Prize as well as two other special prizes at the prestigious 51st Paganini International Violin Competition in Genova.