This carefully selected programme by the multi award-winning Mare Duo presents some of the best original music written for mandolin and guitar, showing both instruments as equal chamber music partners in works both challenging and beautiful. The Duo’s surprising range and variety of timbre can be heard from Funk Pearson’s highly atmospheric Mountain Moor, and the intercultural sketches by Thomas Allen LeVines, to Guido Santórsola’s lyrical Sonata no.6. Ernst Krenek’s Suite is a late masterpiece that embraces virtuosity, intimacy and quirky wit, with a dramatic mini-opera as its finale, while Monk Feldman depicts an elusive ocean landscape in The Pale Blue Northern Sky.

Music for guitar and mandolin might seem a niche market, but it has proven to be a surprisingly fruitful source of excellent music and musicianship in recent years, and this superb new album joins a previous Naxos release by Duo Ahlert and Schwab (8559686) which covers seven living American composers. The Mare Duo’s programme very much breaks with the convention of melody plus accompaniment for these instruments, but is equally personal and wide-ranging. Their programme includes world premiere recordings, and Thomas Allen LeVines’ after the quake which is dedicated to the Mare Duo. They made their Naxos debut with a disc of works for mandolin and guitar by Domeniconi (8574061), released in January 2021.

Mare Duo:
- Annika Hinsche (mandolin)
- Fabian Hinsche (guitar)