Michael Wollny, Vincent Peirani - Tandem (2016)

Between them, the German pianist Michael Wollny and French accordionist Vincent Peirani create as rich a variety of musical sounds, textures and forms as you’re ever likely to hear from two acoustic instruments. In style, these 10 pieces go from highly structured arrangement through more conventional jazz treatment to abstract free improvisation. Each has a charm of its own, makes perfect sense and is formidably well played. Outstanding among them are Wollny’s Bells and arrangements of Barber’s Adagio for Strings and Björk’s Hunter. Even in the quietest passages the dynamic rapport between the two is obvious. The two final tracks are live concert recordings, where the duet’s improvisation bears out Wollny’s description of playing with Peirani as “like tennis on fast forward”.