Suite in A (1895) - Zemlinsky
Duo Concertante (1932) - Stravinsky
Mythes op 30 (1915) - Szymanowski
The titles of Szymanowski's three Mythes are soaked in Greek classical lore, but La fontaine d'Arethuse, Narcisse and Dryades et Pan owe less to the bluntness of the original mythology than they do to the accretions of centuries.
Mallarme's L'apres-midi d'un faune, which hides the story under a refined elaboration of ornament, is the literary equivalent of the Mythes.
So extraordinary is this music in its reluctance to let any sound emerge that is not encrusted with exquisitely tasteful jewellery, so dreamlike is the atmosphere created that performers have to be careful not to break the spell by any inadequacy of technique or conviction.
The duo of Kamilla Schatz (violin) and Silke Avenhaus (piano) played with a decadent sumptuousness that fitted the music like a glove.
They were equally at home in Zemlinsky's more conventional suite, a work whose short movements preserved a balance between the light-hearted and the profound.
Stravinsky's Duo Concertan te was much closer in feeling to the Zemlinsky than the Szyma nowski even though it was written so much later. With its emphasis on melody and in the absence of hectic rhythmic mannerisms it is one of the composer's less characteristic works: it provided an interesting contrast to the full-blown romantic works that came on each side of it.