Product Description This debut recital disc from violinist Kaoru Yamada and pianist Sholto Kynoch is a breathtaking performance of a fascinating and beautiful programme based around the Fantasy repertoire for violin and piano. The Schubert Fantasie was the first piece that Yamada and Kynoch played together as students at the Royal Academy of Music nearly a decade ago and was a natural choice for their first disc together. To this they have added the Fantasies of Schoenberg and Messiaen, two brilliantly contrasting works. Completing the violin and piano repertoire of Messiaen, they have included his Thme et variations and La Mort du nombre as well as Schubert s song Sei mir gegrsst!, which was the inspiration for his own Fantasie. They are joined for these latter two pieces by rising stars of the singing world, soprano Rhona McKail and tenor Nicky Spence. Yamada and Kynoch are critically acclaimed not only for the intense musicality of their interpretations but also for the symbiotic nature of their performing relationship. This is a recital pairing that has matured and developed repertoire as a duo, something that is apparent whenever they are heard playing together, and never more so than on this disc. They are appearing at London s Wigmore Hall and throughout the U.K. during 2010 in recitals featuring pieces from this disc. Review Their partnership dates from the day they met at the Royal Academy of Music seven years ago, since when they have regularly worked together, and the quality of their playing is evidence of the benefit they have derived from this long association. --Musical Opinion, Wigmore Hall, 2008 Giving their first recital in the Highlands, two superb musicians, Kaoru Yamada, violin, and Sholto Kynoch, piano, winners of the 2005 prestigious Tunnell Trust Award, began their programme with the Sonata in A major of Schubert. Here, both musicians immediately established a superb rapport and technical assurance in this most lyrical work. It was, however, in the famous Sonata in A major ("Kreutzer") of Beethoven that the true authority, panache and dazzling technical gifts of the duo were richly displayed. This was real virtuoso playing. --Ross-shire Journal, Invergordon, 2007