(2026) Bicinia

2026-02-19T15:07:16+01:00

A School of Two-Part Writing

Read reviews

In the style of a top-class multi-course and harmonious menu, Sini Simonen and Alexandre Foster present duos spanning over four hundred years of music history: an “entrée paysanne” by Martinů, an elegiac “entremet” by Kaija Saariaho, the main course by Maurice Ravel, a varied cheese plateau by Roland Moser and a bittersweet dessert by Helena Winkelman. Short “mises en oreilles” by Orlando di Lasso and György Ligeti intersperse the courses throughout, opening the ears to new sound experiences.

I

Bohuslav Martinu’s Duo No. 2 comes across on this CD like a naïve painting: simple major-minor harmonies, clear forms and folk music allusions. It only took Martinů four days to compose the piece at the end of 1958. The preceding summer had been the last he spent in relative peace of mind; the composer had still hoped to escape stomach cancer that claimed his life fourteen months later. The duo was written at Schönenberg near Pratteln, not far from Basel. The well-travelled composer spent the last months of his life there as a guest of Maja and Paul Sacher and received excellent medical care. Thanks to Paul Sacher’s numerous commissions, Martinů was well integrated into Basel’s musical life. The Duo No. 2 was also a commission, namely from the Basel musicologist Ernst Mohr, who requested the work for the 50th birthday of his wife Trauti Mohr-Bally.

Stylistically speaking, the three-movement work is far removed from anything that was popular in contemporary music at the time. The first movement is reminiscent of Stravinsky’s neoclassical style. The deeply sorrowful central movement evokes farewell and is clearly strongly influenced by Martinů’s serious illness. The last movement contains echoes of the folk music of the composer’s Czech homeland, which he had left in 1923 and to which he never returned after fleeing from the Nazis. In Martinů’s late work, the homeland therefore becomes all the more a central point of longing.

The work was not premiered until 1962 – three years after Martinů’s death – by Hansheinz Schneeberger and Dieter Staehelin at a private concert in Basel.

II

Particular rarities on this CD are three motets from Orlando di Lasso’s 24 two-part motets Novae aliquot (Some New Things), which are heard as interludes between the longer works. They recall the golden age of two-part writing, which emerged a millennium ago, in the 11th and 12th centuries, in the southern French duchy of Aquitaine. Home to the troubadours, this region formed the cradle of European literature and promoted a sophisticated two-part writing in the monastery of Saint Martial in Limoges. Still devoid of a measured rhythmic system, the monophonic choral singing was enriched with a second vocal part, added as a parallel voice, a counter-voice or a varying, ornamental voice.

Unfortunately, this golden age of two-part writing lasted barely a hundred years, for further north in France, the first measured rhythmic notation was soon developed at Notre Dame in Paris. This enabled complex coordination of the voices and gave the resourceful Pérotin the idea of adding a third and even a fourth voice. The harmonic effect was overwhelming, and so three- and four-part writing increasingly became the norm.

However, two-part writing remained present and frequently appeared in four-part pieces: these two-part sections were then called bicinia. Late examples of such bicinia are Orlando di Lasso’s two-part motets, published in 1577. The widely travelled singer and composer wrote them at the height of his career at the Munich court. They are somewhat out of step with the late Renaissance, which was interested in polyphony. Lasso nonetheless opens a door to the future here, as twelve of the motets are marked “Sine Textu”, meaning they are to be performed by instruments. These are Lasso’s only purely instrumental pieces; the contrapuntal masterpieces meander between a calm vocal style and a fascination with the faster turns enabled by the instruments. The voices are closely set. Sini Simonen and Alexandre Foster perform them partly with an octave expansion, which enhances the harmonic quality. The 22nd Motet is, however, played in a close setting, which allows Lasso’s polyphonic intricacy to blossom.

III

Kaija Saariaho originally composed Aure for violin and viola for Henri Dutilleux’s 95th birthday. Her starting point was Dutilleux’s piece Shadows of Time (1996) for orchestra and three children’s voices. She chose the third movement, “Mémoire des ombres”, in which Dutilleux uses fragments from Anne Frank’s diary: “Why us? Why the star?” Over the melody of this text passage, Saariaho composed a lament which is explosive, questioning, redeeming, insistent, and without a proper conclusion, since Anne Frank’s questions must remain unanswered.

IV

In the harmonically dominated era after 1600, two-part music increasingly lost prestige. Larger-scale ensembles then dominated musical production. This changed in 1920, when Maurice Ravel began composing his Sonata for Violin and Violoncello. The piece is in memory of Claude Debussy, who died in 1918. Ravel worked on it for a very long time, only completing it in 1922. It has become one of the great masterworks of music history. One might assume that Ravel would have imitated Debussy‘s opulent harmonies in this homage. The opposite is true: the sonata is a linear, highly chiselled piece of music, far removed from anything impressionistic. Ravel sought the future paths that Debussy might possibly have taken, which are suggested in the linearity of Debussy’s late chamber music works. Thus, deep mourning in the first and third movements contrasts with the venture into the world of Zoltán Kodály and Béla Bartók in the fourth movement. Ravel himself also considered his sonata as a turning point in his creative work; he had discarded all the unnecessary and returned to linear music. It is indeed a highly refined linearity. The composer has managed to create polyphonic textures in which the two instruments sometimes sound like a string quartet. The official premiere on 6 April 1922 by Hélène Jourdan-Morhange and Maurice Maréchal was, however, a failure. The modernity of the work was rejected; it was only much later that its genius and complexity were recognised.

V

In his Drei Widmungen (Three Dedications), Roland Moser reveals himself to be a sound magician who creates surprising effects with few ingredients. The Kleine chromatische Studie (Small Chromatic Study) was written for the 75th birthday of the renowned Swiss violinist Hansheinz Schneeberger, who premiered the first work on this CD; it is an auditory etude in which the semitonal chromatic space is set against the enharmonic world of natural harmonics and flageolets. Moser is interested in the cello’s extremes: the high and highest registers and the rich possibilities for alchemical mixtures that the complex flageolets on the low cello strings permit. In the Sarabande – dedicated to the cellist Käthi Gohl, the composer’s wife – memories of various Baroque sarabandes resound as if through a veil in the instrument’s low register. The Barcarola is a paraphrase of the barcarolle from Jacques Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann (“Belle nuit, ô nuit d’amour, / Souris à nos ivresses! / Nuit plus douce que le jour, / Ô belle nuit d’amour!”). It bears the dedication “per le due” and alludes to the couple’s long-standing romantic relationship. Offenbach’s original flashes up like a delight for the ears.

VI

György Ligeti’s Hommage à Hilding Rosenberg is an enharmonic showpiece, namely a miniature passacaglia in which the theme, consisting of a descending scale, is enharmonically exchanged. The same tones first sound with flat accidentals and then transform to sharp accidentals at the end: a dizzying tonal circumnavigation in 25 bars. The fifths of the open strings are also heard as an accompaniment. This miniature was dedicated to the Swedish conductor and composer Hilding Rosenberg for his 90th birthday. As a subtitle, Ligeti wrote “with invocation of Bartók’s spirit”, an allusion to the latter’s art of setting the simplest elements into twisted tensions.

VII

Helena Winkelman is at home in many domains. The composer, violinist and concert organiser moves confidently amongst classical music, jazz and Swiss folk music. The duo Rondo mit einem Januskopf (Rondo with a Janus Head) belongs to Winkelman’s early compositions. The Janus head represents Winkelman’s polystylistic position: one face shows entertaining and lively jazz in the style of Dave Brubeck, whilst the other face reveals, in the middle sections, experimental sounds that question the cheerful play.

Roman Brotbeck
Translation: Michelle Bulloch – Musitext

Sini Simonen

Finnish violinist Sini Simonen enjoys an international career as a chamber musician and soloist. For twelve years, she was first violin of the Castalian String Quartet, performing worldwide at major venues and holding residencies at Wigmore Hall as well as the University of Oxford. Sini has worked closely with composers such as Thomas Adès, Charlotte Bray, Bent Sørensen and Mark-Anthony Turnage. She is a regular guest at festivals including Aldeburgh, Edinburgh, Kuhmo, OCM Prussia Cove and Spoleto, and collaborates frequently with artists such as Stephen Hough, Alasdair Beatson and Michael Collins.

Her discography includes Bach’s Double Violin Concerto with Helsinki Strings, Bach’s Triple Concerto with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, and an award-winning album featuring quartets by Beethoven and Adès, as well as her own arrangements of Renaissance music

Sini Simonen studied at the Sibelius Academy, the Hochschule für Musik Hannover and the Musik-Akademie Basel, among others with Lara Lev and Rainer Schmidt. Masterclasses and collaborations with Ferenc Rados, Rita Wagner and Sir András Schiff provided important artistic influences. She has won top prizes at international violin competitions including the Flesch, Lipizer and Cremona competitions, and also received prizes at the Brahms, Lyon, ARD and Banff chamber music competitions

She is Professor of Violin at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

Alexandre Foster

The Québec (CA) cellist Alexandre Foster pursues a career encompassing both the Baroque repertoire and modern music. This dual artistic orientation has led him to perform on some of Europe’s most prestigious stages, including the Casa da Música Porto, the KKL Lucerne and Munich’s Herkulessaal.

Driven by a passion for chamber music, he is a founding member of the Calvino Trio, with whom he has performed worldwide. The trio was awarded the Norbert Schenkel First Prize at the Jeunesses Musicales Competition 2015, followed by the Orpheus First Prize at the Swiss Chamber Music Competition 2016. Alexandre Foster was also a member of the Basler Streichquartett and is, since many years, principal cellist of the Baroque ensemble Les Passions de l’Âme

His discography reflects his interest in a wide range of artistic projects. It includes, notably, the first recording of Beethoven’s piano quartets on historical instruments (Dynamik), as well as the complete recording of Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber’s Harmonia Artificioso-Ariosa (Deutsche Harmonia Mundi), both acclaimed by the international press. His solo cello recording “Ist Klang der Sinn?”, featuring the participation of Heinz Holliger, attracted particular critical attention for both the complexity of the programme and an interpretation described as possessing a “phenomenal intensity” (Klassik-Heute)

Alexandre Foster studied with David Ellis, Thomas Demenga, Conradin Brotbek, Rainer Schmidt, Anton Kernjak and Ferenc Rados, and deepened his engagement with historically informed performance practice under Christophe Coin at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel. Alongside his concert career, he pursues an international teaching activity and has been Professor of Cello at the Musik-Akademie der Stadt Basel since 2023.

[Website]

REVIEWS

The Critic

"[..] Sini Simonen is a Finnish violinist who teaches at London’s Royal Academy of Music. Alexandre Foster is French-Canadian, professor of cello in Basle. Serious people who play as if this is their one shot at glory. They have turned my bleak week into an hour of hope and stories. This is what five stars are made for." - Norman Lebrecht, April 2026