Violinist Judith Ingolfsson and pianist Vladimir Stoupel are both accomplished soloists with international concert careers. In 2006, they began a successful collaboration, searching for new paths in chamber music and devoting themselves to the cultivation of an uncommon repertoire. One of their projects is “Concert-Centenaire,” dedicated to composers whose lives were influenced by the First World War.

The French composer Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) was a master of lyrically flowing harmonies. His sensitive, transparent music is full of elegance and poetry and eschews the trappings of ostentatious virtuosity. Fauré’s two sonatas for violin and piano were composed more than forty years apart, and mark important turning points in his artistic life. The First Sonata was his breakthrough as a composer, and the success of this work unleashed an unprecedented wave of interest in the genre in France. The magnificent Second Sonata is the first work from the final period of his life, when he would produce a rich and unique collection of chamber music.

“Concert-Centenaire” is a series of three CDs that also includes works by Albéric Magnard, Rudi Stephan and Louis Vierne.