The album by violist Hanna Hohti and pianist Anna Kuvaja features the great sonatas for viola and piano by two late 19th-century composers, Rebecca Clarke (1886–1979) and York Bowen (1884–1961). The album offers the listener two different but side-by-side perspectives on the viola-piano repertoire of the early 20th century and the musical life of that period in general. The composers belonged to the same generation, grew up in the same city, and partly studied at the same educational institutions, but their musical language and musical thinking differed stylistically. The most important starting point for making this album has been the desire to bring out these sonatas performed by the original instruments. The historic Pleyel grand piano heard on the record is from 1874. This French instrument is very different from the modern grand piano. The straight strings and registers that sound in different ways make the instrument sound sparklingly raspy and, when necessary, impressionistic. The instrument has a natural reverberation, just like English period instruments. In the recording, the viola typically plays the bare gut string A, as well as the coated gut strings D, G and C strings.
