Duo Pleyel plays quatre-mains version Beethoven's Symphonies
In their project "Beethoven - Minimized to the Max" Duo Pleyel, consisting of pianists Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya and Richard Egarr, play all of Beethoven's symphonies in Carl Czerny's version for piano 4 hands over the next three years. By the beginning of the 19th Century, repertoire for piano 4-hands had become a hugely important product. Carl Czerny, Beethoven’s star pupil, heard most of Beethoven’s music as it was being created and premiered. His transcriptions of the Symphonies are works of great love, skill, brilliance, and musicological importance. They are also huge fun to play. Duo Pleyel plays at the Waalse Kerk.
Duo Pleyel plays quatre-mains version Beethoven's Symphonies
One piano with 2 pair of hands
Each one of Beethoven’s Symphonies marks a significant point not only in the Composer’s own development, but also in the Symphonic form in Music History. This programme features two works that represent titanic moments in that history: the “Pastoral” and “Eroica” Symphonies. The Pastoral contains music of unmatched descriptive power, both in a purely pictorial sense (dancing peasants, storms, cuckoos etc), but more importantly in its communication of the intense emotions and dramatic power of life and nature.
Until the Eroica burst forth on the world, a musical creation of such scale was quite simply unimagined. The sheer size of its content, the length and the difficulty, had never before been present in symphonic music. These two symphonies both show Beethoven dealing with Man’s relation to the Universe and the Universal: the Eroica deals with Man as an individual and ultimately fallible Hero, the Pastoral with Man’s insignificance and humility when confronted by Nature.
Duo Pleyel (Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya and Richard Egarr) takes its name from their pet piano - a beautiful instrument made in 1848 by Chopin’s preferred maker, Pleyel. The Duo has been working for the past 4 years to bring the rich and exciting repertoire for piano 4-hands to a wider public. They are particularly committed to providing mixed programmes ranging from the earliest music by Johann Christian Bach and Mozart, to the lesser-known early Romantics such as Hummel, Czerny and Dussek, and through to the great popular works by Faure, Debussy and Ravel in the twentieth century.
Program
L. van Beethoven: Symphony No.6 in F "Pastoral", Op.68 [Arranged for piano 4-hands by Carl Czerny]
- Pause -
L. van Beethoven: Symphony No.3 in E-flat, Op.55 [Arranged for piano 4-hands by Carl Czerny]