AUDIO REVIEW: Baiba & Lauma Skride: Duo Sessions

The violinist Baiba Skride (born 1981) and her pianist sister, Lauma (born 1982), are from Riga, Latvia. Their Duo Sessions offers tender, preternaturally sensitive versions of visionary works by Schubert, Beethoven, and Ravel. As interpreted by these performers, Schubert’s “Sonata for Violin and Piano in D” has a consoling, flexible spirit, while Beethoven’s “Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 3 in E-flat Major” is pensively humane. With Ravel’s dashingly vibrant “Tzigane” and radiant “Violin Sonata” as complements, the Skride sisters have created a delectably enlivening program which — as Schubert defined as the essential goal of music — brings us to a better world. Only the finest musicians can achieve this level of collaborative harmony, which is the ultimate goal of chamber music.