Marcia Henry-Liebenow and Antonio Pompa-Baldi performa a sonata by Edvard Grieg from their new recording, Works for Piano Volume 7. Information on the CD, and additional samples are available at the album's page on CDUniverse.com.

Gary Panetta of the Peoria Journal Star explains the CD:

The disc features the Grieg sonatas for violin and piano Opus 13 and 45, both of which were performed at the March concert. (The second movement of the sonata for violin and piano Opus 8, which also is on the CD, was performed at the earlier concert as an encore).

The project grew out of Pompa-Baldi's appearances in recent years with the Peoria Symphony Orchestra, where Liebenow serves as concertmaster. Pompa-Baldi, who has an international reputation as a rising piano virtuoso, liked Liebenow's temperament, musically and personally, and asked her to collaborate with him on the CD.

"His background is all different from mine - he grew up in Italy, he's a pianist, he's been in the competition circuit," said Liebenow, who grew up in Mansfield, Ohio, in a family of musicians and later attended the New England Conservatory. "It was really exciting for me to play with someone of Antonio's musical stature who performs all over the world."

Recording the disc - which took place in early 2006 at Louisiana State University - was a delicate matter of combining technical sound perfection with the freshness of a live performance.

"Everything is amplified or magnified on the recording. It's like your ear is in the piano or in the violin - like you're standing right there," Liebenow said. "So everything has to be as perfect as possible from a technical aspect. Of course, you don't want to lose the flow and excitement of a live performance. So you have to keep that going as well - the excitement of the music, the musicality and the phrasing. That has to be there, too, when you record."