#two pianos

Anton Arensky (1861-1906) – Suite for Two Pianos No.1 in F major, Op.15 (1888).

00:05 I. Romance. Allegretto. 04:08 II. Valse. Allegro. 09:05 III. Polonaise. Allegro ma non troppo.

Chopin - Rondo for two pianos in C Major, op.73 (1828)

Tchaikovsky: Nutcracker-Suite (Argerich/Zilberstein)

André Renaud. 1929. Paul Colin.

47 3/8 x 63 in./120.3 x 120.3 x 160 cm

"The two pianos which André Renaud played simultaneously are thrown at us with seeming abandon, but, like all these geometric ‘tricks’ of Colin, they are very deliberately drawn for maximum effect. The effect Colin seeks here – to overwhelm us with the wizardry of Renaud – is achieved by the overwhelming size of the pianos. Renaud, who went on to become a bandleader, even played the two pianos blindfolded for a while" (Colin, p. 9).

Mozart - Sonata for Two Pianos (1781)

A paradox of Mozart’s music, which I’d written about before, is how it is deceptively “simple”. The music is so well crafted, it flows almost effortlessly and everything sounds “right”, no note out of place, etc. At the same time, the writing is so difficult and complex, and playing Mozart is challenging. Someone like Mitsuko Uchida is a great Mozart interpreter because she ironically puts in so much effort to sound “effortless”. This deceptive simplicity can be heard in this piece, one of my top favorite Mozart works, the sonata for two pianos. Mozart wrote earlier piano duets for him to play with his sister when they were young, but this duo was written in his mid twenties for a concert. The galant cheerfulness and bright, robust passages, distract from the hellish difficulty for the two musicians to keep at the same tempo and articulation. It has a little “grand” opening, a large chord with a homogenous unison pattern going upward to establish the key. Then the pianists toss the material back and fourth, a little game of catch. The main melody has scales that soon overlap, and the music becomes dense and relentless. It’s unbridled joy in sync. The B section is a slower sigh where the pianos echo each other like canonic imitation. A great part is where one piano is playing chords in the beat as the other is playing rapid scales, leading up to the shimmering conclusion of large rolled chords. The development takes an earlier softer melody, lightly reshapes it, and turns it into a fugato in octaves, but it’s a false opening because we then go into a little outburst of chords for dramatic effect. It leads us back into the recapitulation, where the glowing sunlight continues to shine. The second movement is a simple little aria, a soft lightly decorated melody played over an ostinato. The kind of Mozartian music that people like to swoon over. Little dissonances in the music make you long for the next resolution, and there are points where the pianos trade off, one rests while the other continues the passage, and it comes off as one fluid motion, as if there is only one pianist. Added decorations give more polyphony to this “simple” slow movement. The third movement throws us right in with a rush trills, scales, and chords, bringing us to the soundscape of the first movement and overwhelming us with the speed. The end of this passage, before the repeat, we get a large “coda” that feels like a party with people stomping their feet and laughing. We galop through the rondo until the dazzling coda that brings back the “party theme”, and the ending almost begs for applause even if you’re listening to it alone.

Movements:

1. Allegro con spirito

2. Andante

Stravinsky - Concerto for Two Solo Pianos (1935)

After the success of his early ballets, Stravinsky went through two major changes. The first was the transition from his “Russian” folk period into his “Neoclassical” period. Second, was promoting himself as a concert pianist. He’d written a concerto for piano and winds, and then wanted to explore the piano’s capability as a solo instrument. The work opens with an intense sonata movement that is almost relentless, no pauses, like a machine it cranks onward. Even with the cold metallic imagery, the music has a whimsical feel to it, almost like carnival music. But it also has some magical moments, and genuinely “beautiful” passages. The next movement is a nocturne, that feels almost like a music box, a pretty melody playing between percussive accompaniment. Soon the rhythm gets distorted, and the melancholic attitude turns smarmy, and includes little jabs and smirks, sounding less like Chopin and more like Gershwin. While writing this work, Stravinsky said he spent a lot of time looking at Brahms and Beethoven’s variations. Following their two great sets [the Handel and Diabelli variations, respectively], he writes a set of variations and a fugue to end the work. The variations take us back to the acrobatics of the first movement, but with more fluidity as the melody includes large leaps, and each variation feels like a different dance, ending with a demented waltz. Before the fugue comes a prelude, opening with solemn octaves that are given gnarled harmony at first, before turning into something more sweet. The fugue is woven around an ostinato of a repeating note, and it grows in intensity as it develops and adds voices. Near the ending, it turns into a chordal coda, that carries the drama until it suddenly dies off as a soft chord, as if the music could keep going but was cut off.

Movements:

1. Con moto

2. Notturno: Adagietto

3. Quattro variazioni