Geir Draugsvoll (bayan), Trondheim SO/Øyvind Gimse Naxos 8.572772 ****

Sofia Gubaidulina is a composer who delights in the exploration of instrumental sonorities. This new CD couples two pieces, written nearly 20 years apart, that feature the Russian button accordion, the bayan, an instrument which clearly has a special place in Gubaidulinas heart. Fachwerk (Timber Framing)for bayan, percussion and string orchestra, premiered in 2009 and here receives its first recording. It was inspired by a perceived linkage between the instrument and the patterns of timber frame construction. The orchestra functions as a kind of alter ego or doppelgänger, so that you can almost regard the 36-minute, single-movement piece as the output of a unique hyper-bayan. Silenzio, for bayan, violin (Geir Inge Lotsberg) and cello (Øyvind Gimse), is, as the title suggests, a meditation at the softest of the dynamic spectrum.

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