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