Ivana Gavric made her debut on Champs Hill Records in 2010, when her playing described as ’altogether of an extraordinary calibre" by BBC Music Magazine who also made her ’Newcomer of the Year’ in their 2011 BBC Music Magazine awards.

Her second recording brings together works written between 1905 and 1912, by composers separated by nationality; but linked together in posibility the most exciting period in modern European culture.

Completing her survey of Janácek’s major solo piano works, Ivana puts On an overgrown path and the Sonata 1. X. 1905 in the context of Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales and Prokofiev’s Sonata No2.

Ivana writes "Ever since my student years, the Ballets Russes have greatly fascinated me, in particular Prokofiev’s involvement with Diaghilev and the company. His second Sonata is a real statement by a young composer who has just formulated his style, full of his  trademark soaring melodies and occasional sarcastic gestures."

At a similar time and as if in another world, Janácek was finding his unique style at his own pace. He uses Moravian folk melodies first in the opening numbers of the Path, and more confidently in the Sonata. His Prokofiev, melody was key for Janácek, although in a more fractured, febrile state.

"I have always been drawn to the brash, brass-like chords at the start of Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales" adds Ivana.

"They open the work with such a rude gesture, later melting into more sensuous and quirky takes on the waltz which end in an epilogue: a hazy recollection of ’the night before’."