Sarah Saviet [violin] and Joseph Houston [piano] formed their duo in 2019 through a mutual devotion to an intimate, powerful, and transcendental sound language created by the violin and piano. In this album, the Saviet/Houston Duo trace a path through a shifting landscape of melodic contour, with duos by Michael Finnissy, Rebecca Saunders/Enno Poppe, Lawrence Dunn, Iannis Xenakis, and their own collaborative composition. Each work reflects in different ways the intricate contradictions and the powerful complexity of contemporary life. This album, a new production by Deutschlandradio Berlin, presents the following compositions: Mississippi Hornpipes [Michael Finnissy], Walking, Waking [Sarah Saviet/Joseph Houston], Are you there [Lawrence Dunn], Dikhthas [Iannis Xenakis], Taste [Rebecca Saunders/Enno Poppe].
The Saviet/Houston Duo, founded in Berlin, focuses on collaborating with contemporary composers, contemporary and experimental music, their own compositions, and music from the 19th and 20th centuries. Joseph Houston has already collaborated on the WINTER & WINTER production time-space-sound-light by Christian Mason. Joseph Houston is a British pianist who lives in Berlin. His playing has been described as breathtakingly virtuosic [Die Zeit] and technically masterful [Stuttgarter Zeitung]. Violinist Sarah Saviet also lives in Berlin and performs as a soloist and chamber musician and is a member of the Ensemble Mosaik. The Saviet/Houston Duo captivates audiences with its unique, intimate sound language, which makes new music an appealing, entertaining, and varied listening experience.
Mississippi Hornpipes
The piece stemmed from a filmic vision, of two violinists playing the same music increasingly out-of-phase with each other. In fact the basic content was then drawn from 19th century collections of »folk fiddle« tunes – with the glissandi and smudging being crude sonic representations of editing, of sudden vigorous cutting from one musical image to another.
— Michael Finnissy
Walking, Waking
The inspiration for this piece was the simple idea of a single line, played in unison by both instruments. We each found a specific approach to attack and release that allowed for these very different instruments to blend into a composite sound. The tension of the line is held taught for as long as possible, before finally opening into a rich landscape of resonance and colour. 
— Sarah Saviet & Joseph Houston
Are you there
The octave between two pitches as a representation of simultaneous distance and connectedness in persons. What is it about the other person that makes us know they are other to us. That a person is what they make of us, or what we make of them. The violin and piano as a straightforward instance of one person and another person, and the fact that two persons cannot ever inhabit the interior of one another. The interior can only be surmised. The fact that another person might disappear suddenly.
— Lawrence Dunn
Dikhthas
Xenakis’ Dikhthas is a duo of abrasive contrasts: interwoven lines from both instruments branch out unpredictably, sometimes working together, and at other times in direct contradiction. The result is a monumental work–full of explosive energy–that demands intense attention.
— Sarah Saviet & Joseph Houston 
Taste
We had wanted to write a piece together for years. After many tentative attempts, we chose two existing pieces. Rebecca wrote a piano part to Enno‘s violin solo, Schmalz [2009], and Enno wrote a violin part to Rebecca’s piano solo, Shadow [2013]. These two explorations follow concurrently in Taste. Both pieces are completely transformed, and with dialogues, commentaries, cross-connections and developments, the boundaries between them have been eliminated. Taste, English or German? A Saunders title, a Poppe title? Taste is, above all, a double duo.
In memoriam Ulrich Löffler [† 30.8.2022]
— Rebecca Saunders & Enno Poppe