Francesco Parrino and Véronique Ngo
Sach-Hien started
their artistic collaboration ten years ago in London,
soon reaching a harmony and interpretative maturity that
has led a critic to define their duo as “perfect like a
neoclassical sculpture” (Centro Valle - Sondrio, 21
January 2003). The Parrino-Sach-Hien duo has performed
in prestigious theatres and important concert halls in
Great Britain and Italy (University of Warwick Music
Centre; St. Martin-in-the-fields, London; St. John's,
Smith Square, London; Teatro delle Muse, Ancona; Teatro
Civico di Tortona; Auditorium Canneti, Vicenza;
Conservatorio San Niccolò, Prato; Auditorium Torelli,
Sondrio; etc), and has been applauded and appreciated
for their expressive and communicative power as much as
for their refined and innovative programmes, which
combine standard repertoire with unjustly neglected
nineteenth- and twentieth-century masterpieces. Their
forthcoming engagements include concerts in France and
Italy.
They
are two young players with a solid artistic preparation;
two musicians who have achieved extremely high performative
standards through really intense and serious study of the
works they perform. One could immediately realise and
appreciate Francesco's beautiful tone and very subtle
phrasing in Beethoven's delicate composition, his strong
technique (bow strokes, double stops, harmonics, polyphony,
etc.) in the bold avant-garde work by Bellisario, and the
very acute sensitiveness he displayed when playing Franck's
Sonata - a genuine masterpiece that demands every
performer's utmost emotional involvement. Véronique also
showed a superlative preparation and great musicianship,
both when she intelligently accompanied the violin's line
and when she performed her difficult solo passages, which
were always delivered in a perfect manner.
Il
cittadino - Monza, April 2001
The
Parrino-Sach-Hien duo enchanted the audience at the
Sheraton Hall.
Giornale
di Sicilia - Catania, 27 February 2002
There
are no words to describe the sense of astonishment that
seizes one's consciousness, intellect and spirit, wrapping
them up like a soft veil. Astonishment and a feeling of
being little that do not come from listening to some big
and sonorous orchestras but are rather caused by… a violin
and a piano. They are a universe, indeed two universes that
collide and then become one by a process of osmosis; a
process that has something of the miracle about it and, for
this reason, the features of a rare and precious pearl.
La
Sicilia - Catania, 2 March 2002
Brahms'
and Kreisler's works were exalted by Parrino's and
Sach-Hien's performance […]. Later, the duo launched into
performing a chamber work that is the paradigm of the
dialogue between the violin and the piano: the very famous
1886 Sonata by César Franck - a piece that is charged with
late-Romantic sensual humours and is wrapped in skilfully
written contrapuntal subtleties of intense expressiveness.
It is clearly impossible to attempt to play this piece
unless one is supported by a commanding and bold technique
as well as by profound interpretative maturity. Parrino and
Sach-Hien showed to possess both qualities and the audience
bestowed their very warm applause upon them. A Kreisler
encore fittingly concluded this remarkable concert.
Il
giornale di Vicenza, 6 March 2004