Duo Diagonal - Anytime (2021)

"Meetings across music history" had the two soloists as the overall theme for their concert, and it was true that the evening's repertoire ranged from baroque to modern Danish, Bulgarian and Finnish-Russian music. However, it was also a meeting of instruments that came to stand in a beautifully functioning interplay, in ideal harmony, as representatives of each their age: the harpsichord of the baroque, the accordion of modern, classical music.
The two instruments depicted each other, taking color according to each other's expressions. While the harpsichord in Johann Mattheson's Suite was like a gentle breeze in the keyboard, the accordion had absolute grounding; notes of wood and lush soil in a beautiful, integrated interplay. Three (out of seven) Inventions by Leonid Bashmakov (1985) brought to mind impenetrable pine forests, a dark windswept sky. From there to the world of birds, where the allegro-commodo movement in particular resonated with the Finnish composer Rautavaara. The movements were gently unfolded, they stood sensuous for us and were played extremely singable.
A small voice from the Renaissance began Zlateva's interpretation of Frescobaldi's Toccata 8, was taken over by the Baroque's mighty embellishments and carried through with balanced pondus by the soloist. From Vagn Holmboe's Trio for Cembalo, Recorder and Cello came two movements, of which only two things have to be said: It was exuberantly virtuoso played, it was harmonious and orderly music, and as it can be heard in Holmboe: Unpredictable in terms of accompaniment and means of expression .
The duo rounded off just as beautifully as they had begun. With the Bulgarian Pancho Vladigerov's Shumen miniatures you got a vue a miniature of the earliest upbringing with a lullaby, reminiscent of a childhood remembered through the sound of a music box, a village dance ... All expressed through the fine moods expressed congenially by the Bulgarian Anka Zlateva and the Dane Adam Ørvad.