Elena Urioste and Tom Poster

Estrellita

Bis

ONE dreads to think how a more cross-over besotted label (the one that famously passed on The Beatles perhaps) would have marketed this exquisite and accessible duo album by the 2007 winner of the Scottish International Piano Competition and equally prize-garlanded American violinist Elena Urioste. Thankfully Sweden’s esteemed Bis can be relied upon for some Scandinavian restraint.

The sleeve photos of Urioste gazing at her beau, whose own eyes search the heavens for the “little star” of the title, give the game away, but just a listen to the disc would suggest that the pair are more than musical partners. The collection of classical pops they have recorded includes vintage arrangements by Fritz Kreisler and Jasha Heifetz and is unashamedly romantic, but always stays on the right side of cloying. Their story is irresistible though: thrown together by the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists scheme for a recording session, they struck up an immediate musical rapport, and when that relationship was rekindled at a chamber music festival a couple of years later, the deal was sealed.

Although given the best of modern recordings, this is quite an old fashioned album of lush repertoire, beautifully played. It includes Debussy from that first meeting as well as Dvorak and Elgar, and concludes with a four-song excursion into the Great American Songbook, Gershwin by Heifetz followed by three lovely arrangements by Poster himself.

There’s not a seasonal tune on it, but Estrellita is the Christmas gift to please just about anyone.

Keith Bruce