An event music-lovers have been awaiting expectantly: Fondamenta has just made it happen. At the instigation of his daughter, the pianist Ksenia Bashmet, the legendary viola player Yuri Bashmet has returned to solo repertoire after fifteen years away from recording studios to give us a stunning interpretation of the last opus of Brahms’ chamber music. The album opens and closes with the two sonatas for viola and piano, Opus 120, two masterpieces of the repertoire. Between the two works, Ksenia Bashmet delights the listener with her ardour and lyrical sensitivity in the two rhapsodies for piano.

Works that showcase the timbre, virtuosity and sensitivity of the viola are few and far between. The bonds between Ksenia and Yuri weave themselves into a magical web, palpable in both the turmoil and the melancholy of the first sonata and the subtle, sensitive dialogue of the second sonata, which closes with a high-spirited burst of laughter.