An Introduction to Piano Music for Four Hands

It would seem that England was an early pioneer in encouraging the popularity of duet keyboard music for both one instrument and two. Dr. Charles Burney (born in Shrewsbury in 1726) compiled his Four Duet-Sonatas for Two performers on Pianoforte or Harpsichord in 1777, and it is thought to be the earliest music of its kind to be printed. Earlier duet scores existed in manuscript, and the British Museum holds one of the earliest copies - A Verse for Two to play on one Virginal or Organ by a certain Nicholas Carlton, possibly dating from the middle of the sixteenth century.

The young Mozart, touring European cities and courts performing with his sister, Nannerl, did much to bring the piano duet form to prominence. The pair performed here in England in 1764, and it has often been said that a ‘Great Age’ of duet composition begun with Mozart continued its development with major contributions by Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms.

However, the nineteenth century also saw a huge expansion of the popular duet repertoire with hundreds of arrangements of works for two players. Most often writing for two players on one instrument, composers (frequently encouraged by publishers and by public demand) made numerous arrangements of their own music and of major works from the chamber and popular orchestral repertoire to encourage familiarity and domestic performance.

Composers as early as Beethoven through to Stravinsky, and modern composers of all genres, have all offered us skilful arrangements for piano duet of much-loved major works. This evening we are able to enjoy two such modern transcriptions: E.Langer’s adaptation of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, and Philip Moore’s own transcription of three movements from Stravinsky’s thrilling Firebird Suite.

Peter Case

In 1889, Debussy had demonstrated, in his famous four-movement work Petite Suite (probably better known in the orchestral version), how sensitive and original was his use of texture and colour when writing for piano for four hands. But the outbreak of the First World War brought him serious depression, and he almost ceased composition. It was at this time he revisited some of his earlier pieces – short settings of prose-poems on classical themes by Pierre Louys, which he had originally conceived for chamber ensemble. He clearly felt at home with the ancient world conjured up by Louys’ texts - a world he had previously explored in instrumental miniatures such as ‘Syrinx’ for solo flute.

The first piece, Invoking Pan, God of the Summer Wind, sets the opening scene in Louys’ poem where two shepherd girls tend their flock, run on the hillside, gather flowers, and spin their flaxen yarn. This little programmatic piece begins with a simple pentatonic panpipe melody and, unusually for Debussy, contains not one chromatic accidental in the piano parts.

In the second vignette, For a Tomb without a Name, we are shown, by our heroine, the grave of her mother’s lover. The poet writes ‘It is not death that has carried me away, but the nymphs of the fountain’. Here, the piano melodies are often unaccompanied, or accompanied by sustained chords, as the composer also evokes a timeless quality with the use of a slow whole-tone scale.

The third piece, That the Night may be Auspicious, and the fourth - For the Dancer with Crotala, both explore blatantly erotic themes in the poetry. Debussy’s setting for the third begins with delicate nocturnal sonorities that grows harmonically richer to match the poem’s sensual elements. The fourth, having no changes of time-signature, has an almost orchestral quality, and the ‘crotala’ (castanets, or perhaps small bells) can be heard in the accented staccato chords.

The fifth section, The Egyptian Woman, and the final piece, Giving Thanks to the Morning Rain, both continue Debussy’s programmatic presentation with suitably oriental tone colours pictured in the fifth, and a toccata-like figuration in the last piece. The final ‘raindrops’ give way to musical references to the opening phrases of the first piece in this remarkable set.

Dedicated to Archduke Randolph and eventually published in Vienna in 1827, this piano transcription of Beethoven’s famous Grand Fugue String Quartet was made by the composer himself for four hands and loses little of the original drama and excitement of the original. Beethoven composed the last six of his quartets in the final two years of his life - a remarkable feat, especially for a composer whose deafness was far advanced!

Many musicologists have attempted an analysis of this extraordinarily complex work, but it is sufficient here to say that it is essentially a one-movement piece, full of thematic conflict. Its many contrasted sections explore every mood and emotion. It has been said - ‘The conflict here is of a kind in which a theme, though beaten to earth, rises to fulfil its destiny.’ This quartet is a significant work in the Beethoven repertory, and the composer’s own transcription for four hands can only help us to get to know it better.

Schubert wrote two Rondos for four hands, one in D major in 1818, and this later work in 1828 - the year Schubert died. Both Rondos are discursive in style and engage the players in musical ‘conversations’ – bouncing thematic ideas and treatments between them. The Grand Rondo in A major we hear tonight is lyrical in character, and in style reflects something of the world of Schubert’s songs as in ‘Wohin?’ (Whither?) and ‘Gretchen am Spinnrade’ (Gretchen at the spinning-wheel) and in others where the accompaniment flows in patterns of quickly moving textures.

This is an exquisitely peaceful work showing the composer’s supreme sensitivity and marked to be played ‘pianissimo’ for long stretches.

Tchaikovsky was commissioned to write the music for the ballet The Nutcracker early in 1891 just before a trip to America, and the story on which the music is based is Dumas’ adaptation of Hoffmann’s delightful tale ‘The Nutcracker and the King of the Mice.’ The plot is long and intriguingly fanciful - too long, regrettably, to tell here in full. It is sufficient to remind us that Tchaikovsky’s well-known music is imbued with all the fantasy atmosphere of this fairytale and can be enjoyed just as it stands. Interestingly, Tchaikovsky did not think highly of the music he had written for this ballet, considering it to be too trite, even cute. But history has been kinder to the score, and the composer’s mastery of charming musical invention has granted it an eternal place in music-lovers’ hearts.

Stravinsky compiled his orchestral Suite: The Firebird in 1919 from the musical score he had written in 1910 for the fairy story ballet of the same name. With choreography by Fokin of the Ballets Russes, it was performed in Paris in June of that year and was Stravinsky’s first major success. This success changed the course of his life, and the Ballets Russes (already world-renowned for the excellence of their productions) adopted Firebird as the most important original score in their repertory. The influence of his musical mentor, Rimsky-Korsakov, was strongly evident in the score of Firebird. But Stravinsky’s determination to develop an individual voice, and collaboration with the renowned impresario Dyagilev, led the composer to produce two more complete ballet scores (Petrushka and Rite of Spring) within the following two years. Music from all these ballet scores was later reworked as orchestral suites. Stravinsky himself arranged some of his stage and dramatic music for piano, but tonight we will enjoy Philip Moore’s transcription of three of the better-known movements from the Firebird Suite in an exciting performance for four hands.