Riko Fukuda and Elisabeth Smalt already played together in several ensembles, when they decided to bundle their musical strengths and insights, and to form a duo. Their collaboration was the start of an exciting search for the rare works for viola and fortepiano. It became clear that nearly all composers have written some works for this combination. Surprisingly, many composers played the viola themselves, for example Bach, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Dvorak and, from a later period, Hindemith, Bridge, Britten, Reger and Milhoud. Riko and Elisabeth feel that it is important to play the music on authentic instruments, in order to 'speak the composer's language' in an optimal manner. Riko plays fortepianos from all possible periods and countries and Elisabeth plays an old Italian viola, with gut-core strings, when needed. However, they also play works by modern composers: this concert season they will perform works by the American composers James Tenney and Leo Ornstein, a European premiere. The British composer Richard Sims wrote a work for them. They are working on an album with works by Georges Onslow.