Search - Schubert, Tal, Groethuysen :: Piano Music for Four Hands (Box) (Box)

In Reprint at Last: the Superb Duo Tal & Groethuysen Schuber

Sébastien Melmoth | Hôtel d'Alsace, PARIS | 07/02/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In Reprint at Last: the Superb Duo Tal & Groethuysen Schubert Recordings...

.

To live, romantics in this world must temper their sensibility with pragmatism: they may contemplate the starry heavens, but this gutter world is merciless on naïveté.

In the art market, the canny make a virtue of necessity in combining excellence with salability.

And so it was with Schubert's piano duets which "became one of his most reliable sources of income" in which we see his "willingness to meet the demands of publishers, and the expectations of the public, so far as he could do so without compromising his concern for his art." (Reed)

.

By the beginning of the second quarter of the 19th Century, the pianoforte was emerging into the instrument we know today with a metal frame and 7-octave keyboard (although still with leather-covered hammers).

As economic expansion grew apace, prospering Biedermeier (bourgeois) households found piano duet sheet music very congenial to their lifestyle.

And Schubert saw the artistic utility of twenty fingers at one keyboard: withal, he produced probably the single greatest body of work for piano four hands in which some of his most aurally characteristic music may be found.



(Brahms too was very enthusiastic about this adaptable genre, transcribing virtually all his works in the form. Naxos' splendid Brahms' Four-Hand Piano Music series with the Matthies-Köhn Duo runs to 17 volumes! Brahms: Four Hand Piano Music, Vol. 1, etc.)

.

It's very exciting to see this 7CD re-release of the complete Schubert piano duet works by the wonderful Duo Tal & Groethuysen, made in the mid-1990s.

For while there have been some very serviceable recordings by such luminaries as Pires & Sermet, Barenboim & Lupu, and Eschenbach & Frantz, this particular set remains the acme.



Tal & Groethuysen specifically chose a Fazioli piano for these realizations which were made in the excellent acoustical ambience of the Schloß Grafenegg in Austria.

With "their absolute synchronicity, perfect timing and a degree of emotional and creative accord almost beyond belief, [the Duo Tal & Groethuysen] achieve a breathtaking uniformity in their interpretations."

.

Schubert: Piano Duets

Schubert: Grand Duo Variations D813

Schubert: Music for Piano Duet, Vol. 1

Schubert: Music for Piano Duet, Vol. 2

.

"