Search - Pierce & Jonas Piano Duo :: Rachmaninov: Symphonic Dances; Romantic Works for 2 Pianos

Although the popularity of multiple keyboards predates the popularity of the piano itself (Bach wrote concerti for two and three keyboards) and piano, four hands, was a recognized musical medium already in the eighteenth century, the heyday of two-piano music comes later essentially from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. Among the great piano duos of the past were Rosina and Josef Lhevinne, originally from Moscow but emigrants to the United States in 1919 and active as a duo by the 1930s. Ethel Bartlett and Rae Robertson, originally from Great Britain (London and Scotland) but also migrated to the U.S., are credited with having established the popularity of the piano duo in concert and with having inspired many composers to write for the medium. This is the lineage inherited by the duo-pianists Joshua Pierce and Dorothy Jonas. As is true of the medium as a whole, their repertoire consists of original works and arrangements, romantic and modern as well as European and American music. In their four hands, the range of the two-piano repertoire, its virtuosity, its sonic possibilities as well as its expressive powers can be well heard and understood. 2008 marks the 30th year that the duo-piano team of Pierce and Jonas has been performing. One of the most imaginative and compelling two piano teams around, Pierce and Jonas have been successfully performing and recording the unusual and neglected two-piano repertoire of the 19th and 20th centuries since the mid-1980 s.