Veronica Kuijken writes: “There was more than one surprise in store for me as I took a closer look at the chronology of the works Héléna and I have recorded here. For instance, the timeline I had spontaneously imagined for the years in which the works were written turned out not to correspond to the actual chronology at all, and the ages of the composers at the time they wrote them do not coincide with the youth or maturity they communicate. But these surprises actually make me rather happy, since they so beautifully illustrate the uniqueness of every person, quite apart from textbook music history! Despite the ‘frozen’ aspect of a recording, we do very much hope that we have succeeded in bringing out the living, breathing quality of the music here. Compositions, we think, are a bit like children: having complete ‘power’ over them is impossible, since they have their own lives. Even composers can only send a work out into the world for it to live on independently – since every time we listen, we hear a different version, don’t we?”
