Hee-Young Lim / Nathalia Milstein RUSSIAN CELLO SONATAS

RUSSIAN CELLO SONATAS

Maria Milstein / Nathalia Milstein LA SONATE DE VINTEUIL

In search of la petite phrase: what Francophile wouldn’t be fascinated by a recital devoted to the various real-life works that might have been the model for the violin sonata by the fictional composer Vinteuil in Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu? It’s an enchanting idea, and it’s only surprising that more duos haven’t taken advantage of it prior to this debut disc by the sisters Maria and Nathalia Milstein.

It doesn’t quite do what it says on the tin. Franck’s Sonata (a prime candidate) is missing, and Debussy’s late Sonata – a work with more tenuous Proustian connections – closes the disc. We do, however, get Gabriel Pierné’s much less familiar Sonata, Op 36, and it’s exquisite: very much in the tradition of Saint-Saëns’s First Sonata, the disc’s centrepiece, and played by the pair with gleaming panache coupled to an affecting inwardness.

These are appealing qualities, and they characterise the whole disc. Maria, on violin, can bring the requisite brilliance when required (the sweep up to the end of the first movement of the Pierné is magnificent), but her sound in quieter passages has a tremulous, almost vocal quality. And although Nathalia, on piano, has a luminous tone and gives a clearly defined character to her rhythms, there’s an intimacy – an instinctive ebb and flow – about the pair’s interplay that makes everything here feel like real chamber music.

They charge Debussy’s central Intermède with an intense theatricality, changing tone-colour by the phrase and almost by the note. But they handle the long lines of the Saint-Saëns with equal assurance, and play two Reynaldo Hahn song transcriptions with unaffected sweetness. A disc with which you might well fall in love. (Richard Bratby / Gramophone)

Nathalia Milstein PROKOFIEV / RAVEL

Figures of modernity in France and in Russia, Prokofiev and Ravel were both interested in older musical forms such as the suite of dances: through a reinvented Baroque language, their compositional research shed light on all the richness of their musical world. Written in times that were marked by the war and the historic upheavals of the early 20th century, Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin and Prokofiev's Fourth Sonata are linked to the memory of their dedicatees. Between memory and imagination, the works carry on a dialogue…

Born in 1995 to a family of musicians, Nathalia Milstein starts the piano at the age of 4 with her father Serguei Milstein and enters his class in the Geneva Conservatory of Music in 2009. In 2013, Nathalia enters the class of Nelson Goerner at the Geneva High School of Music, where she completes her Bachelor and Master's degrees with distinction. Since 2017, Nathalia Milstein is studying at the Barenboim-Said Akademie in Berlin with Nelson Goerner. 

In May 2015, Nathalia launches her international career by winning 1st Prize at the Dublin International Piano Competition and gets engagements all over Europe and North America in the most prestigious halls, such as the National Concert Hall in Dublin, the Zankel Hall in New York, the Wigmore Hall in London, the Gewandhaus in Leipzig. In 2016, she makes a brilliant debut with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France conducted by Marcelo Lehninger.
Nathalia performs in France and abroad, giving solo recitals and chamber music concerts throughout Europe, appearing in major festivals such as La Roque d'Anthéron, Lille Piano Festival, New Ross Piano Festival, International Chamber Music Festival of Schiermonnikoog or Zaubersee Festival. For several years she has been playing in duo with her sister violinist Maria Milstein. In October 2017 is released their duo album "La Sonate de Vinteuil" on the French label Mirare. Nathalia's debut solo CD, featuring works of Prokofiev and Ravel, will be released in March 2018 on Mirare.