Following up his two-volume survey for Naxos of Ghedini’s complete piano music, Massimo Giuseppe Bianchi and his duo partner Emy Bernecoli now turn to this undervalued composer’s works for violin and piano, which include three world premiere recordings. The opening Bizzarria is a nearly-four-minute lyrical vignette featuring subtle neo-impressionistic chords and lovely long sustained passages using harmonics. A newly unearthed three-movement Sonata in A major (1918) easily holds its own in the company of Respighi’s better-known work in the same genre, especially in the imaginative, unclichéd use of pentatonic phrases and runs, and the beautiful slow movement’s almost Franckian long-lined restraint. The Due Poemi are dark, introspective works, where darting, rhapsodic violin lines contrast with the often low-lying, chord-based piano parts. In the second of the two pieces, the piano takes up the main melody in an agitated central section featuring obsessive repeated-note figures. Should these works enter the repertory, prospective performers will find themselves having to measure up to the Bianchi/Bernecoli duo’s impassioned, technically polished and rhythmically rock-solid interpretations.

They offer a more austere, dynamically contrasted and modernist take on Ghedini’s E flat major Sonata than in an earlier recording, where Franco Gulli’s warm, perpetually singing tone in the finale contrasts with Bernecoli’s far more restrained and specific application of vibrato. Superb recorded sound and informative annotations by Flavio Menardi Noguera further enhance an unusual, welcome and valuable disc. And let’s hope that Naxos has further plans for these gifted and fervently committed musicians.