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Mari & Momo Kodama release their first joint album: Tchaikovsky (Pentatone)

The two pianists and sisters Mari Kodama and Momo Kodama will release their first join album on 1 November 2016 at PENTATONE, with arrangements for two pianos of Tchaikovsky’s balletsSwan Lake (Eduard Leontyevich Langer, Claude Debussy), Sleeping Beauty (Sergej Rachmaninov) and Nutcracker (Anton Arensky – premiere recording!).


“Tchaikovsky was really the first composer to combine a broad sweep of ballet music with a great story”, the Kodama sisters write in their introduction to the release. “In all three works there is folkloric and popular music, together with exceptional orchestration. He has the great skill of combining instruments to make such vivid colours and textures on a large canvas… So our challenge was to use just two pianos, twenty fingers and four hands to bring the same sense of scale while maintaining a measure of freedom, and maybe a different way of interpreting the pieces.”

The sisters Mari and Momo Kodama both pursue busy international careers. Momo specialises in French and Japanese as well as 20th century and contemporary composers; she has been widely praised for her ‘attractive, lyrical tone’ and ‘technical brilliance’. Mari has established an international reputation for profound musicality and articulate virtuosity; she has recorded extensively for PENTATONE, including an acclaimed cycle of the complete Beethoven piano sonatas.

Press release

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