Celebrated for his vivid orchestral pieces and effective scores for such films as Altered States and The Red Violin,
John Corigliano is somewhat less renowned for his chamber music and keyboard oeuvre. Yet his international career took off with the premiere of his Sonata for violin and piano (1963), and he has periodically composed important works for piano, all of which show the same expertise and originality displayed in his major concert works. These sophisticated but highly entertaining pieces are not insufficiently recorded, but they are usually scattered about on CDs with other composers' works, so it is good to find them together on this 2006 Black Box release, in lively performances and recorded with fine sound. Violinist
Corey Cerovsek and pianist
Andrew Russo deliver what is probably the most engaging and accessible performance of the program in the sonata, a neo-Classical work that evokes the Americana style of
Copland as well as the academic counterpoint of
Hindemith.
Russo carries most of the workload in his dynamic performance of the extremely demanding Etude Fantasy (1976) and his controlled reading of the insistent Fantasia on an Ostinato (1985). In the microtonal Chiaroscuro for two pianos (1997),
Russo is joined by Steven Heyman, and the duo plays with remarkable coordination and sensitivity to the haunting and humorous expressions
Corigliano intended in his odd tunings and quirky exchanges.