“Virtuosic vocal control from screaming to whispering is what is required of Anna Prohaska here. And once in a while seems to stand still…”
Ö1 Radio
„Virtuose Stimmbeherrschung vom Schreien bis zum Flüstern wird hier von Anna Prohaska verlangt. Und manchmal scheint auch die Zeit stillzustehen…“
Ö1 Radio
When Isabelle Faust asked me to join her for a guest appearance on her label Harmonia Mundi to record Kurtág‘s epic 60min cycle of 40 miniatures for soprano and solo violin I was delighted. We got to pre-date our recording period by two years due to the first lockdown in spring 2020 which proved to be a saving grace. Not only the witty, aphoristic, grotesque numbers but also the violent, melancholic, claustrophobic texts by Franz Kafka became our stepping stones through this strange time.
Isabelle was simply a dream to rehearse and record with, and through our previous mini-tour to Pierre Boulez Saal Berlin and the Kölner Philharmonie in the previous year we could feed off the excitement of tackling this challenging piece live. In the grand old ballroom of the Teldex Studio in the south of Berlin in the guiding hands or rather ears of Martin Sauer we couldn’t have wished for a more safe and socially distant setup with literally just two musicians! Thanks to Marco Borggreve for the extraordinary photos which we couldn’t all fit into the booklet. We also had so much fun with our stylists Daria Kornysheva and Sylvia Grave. On the 2nd of February 2023 we will hit Vienna’s Musikverein with another concert and stay tuned for more dates in the upcoming seasons.
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