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III The classical Viennese Joseph Haydn’s contribution to the two-clavier literature does not reveal any strong interest for the medium since no piece can be attributed to this yet prolific composer.The authenticity of the Concerto in G for two harpsichords, formerly classified as Hob.XVIII: G2, has been actually attributed to Josef Antonin Stepan. This music was published by Skillern of London in 1782 in an arrangement of J. Diettenhofer for two harpsichords only. The concerto was originally scored with a string and two horns accompaniment. On the contrary Mozart appears to have been attracted by the two-keyboard music pretty early. He was only eight years old when he met in London Johann Christian Bach, whom young Wolfgang considered as "the father of keyboard art". Maybe more important to our concern is Mozart’s discovery of Georg Christoph Wagenseil’s keyboard music. This south German composer wrote a concerto for two claviers whose score was belonged by the Mozart family, at least from 1767. Wolfgang Amadeus who favored this composer could not forget Wagenseil’s music when he composed his own concerto for two pianoforte in E flat, K 365. From the chronological point of view he actually started writing his Concerto for three claviers in F major, K 242 in Salzburg in February 1776. Known as the "Lodron" concerto since it was dedicated to the Countess Antonia Lodron and her two daughters, it was premiered in Augsburg in 1777 by Mozart who played the second part while the first was performed by a local organist J.M. Demmler and the third by Stein, the piano manufacturer. Although this version of the concerto was very well accepted by amateurs because of its small technical difficulties as well as by the public who enjoyed its gallant style, it did not seem to fully satisfy Mozart since he turned it out a two-piano concerto. The score became at least more existing for the two soloists who had not to count all the bars of rests of the previous version. Mozart wrote his concerto for two pianoforte in E flat major K365 in 1780. Learning from the concerto for three-piano experience he wrote this one for virtuoso musicians like his sister Nannerl and himself. From their early ages they were used to performing together as the very first famous duetists being celebrated all over Europe. Actually Mozart played it many times with one of his Viennese student, Josephine von Aurnhammer who, he wrote, "was as fat as a peasant girl" although "she plays divinely…". Mozart and his brilliant pianist student premiered it in November 1781 at a private concert at the Aurnhammer’s. For this special performance Mozart had added parts for two clarinets, two trumpets and timpani, which unfortunately were lost. That is why it is now played with its smaller orchestration. The general atmosphere of the concerto evokes happiness, gaiety and joy but this should be considered only as the top of an iceberg built out of deep seriousness not to say hidden intimacy. Linking this masterpiece directly to Mozart’s last bitter and gloomy experiences (his mother’s death, a love failure with Aloysia Weber and his come back in the provincial city of Salzburg after his second European tour) as a reaction towards more light can be true although it is a dangerous commonplace. In great composers like Mozart mirrors are often inverted, hence, one should be careful with the appearance of easy gallant style. The Sonata in D major K448 was actually composed for the above-mentioned concert at the home of family Aurnhammer. After the Concerto in E flat, Mozart and Josephine created this sonata for two clavier "which went remarkably well". This three-movement sonata with its middle section in D major requires some blatant virtuoso capabilities and would bear easily a comparison with Mozart symphonies or operas. Its harmonic structure as well as its range of dynamics are so sophisticated that it appears to be the first orchestral vision in the history of the composition for two keyboards. With the Fugue in C minor, K426, written in December 1783 Mozart was paying his tribute to Johann Sebastian Bach who was at this time completely out of fashion. As it is not fully representative of Mozart’s style this composition lacks in consideration by performers although it would deserve a better in the repertoire. This four voiced fugue is not a mere contrapuntal exercise bearing the complete catalog of theoretical device ranging from inversion to stretto. Its musical expression goes far beyond and reflects a spiritual involvement close to religiosity. This should be emphasized by respecting Mozart’s tempo, an Andante maestoso, as well as in progressing continuously to the last bars’ climax after which the tension vanishes in the silence. In June 1788 Mozart arranged this music for a string orchestra and prefaced it with a added pathetic Adagio in C minor. IV XIX Century composers. Although the revolutionary struck string keyboard was superseding the royal harpsichord all over Europe, the XIX Century was not very generous with the two-piano literature. Composers who clearly favored this new instrument like Beethoven, Schubert, Weber and Dvorák wrote nothing for two pianos. This century was already an era of experimentation because of the classical music democratization. As the pianoforte, mainly its upright version, was to be spread in each household of the new leading class, the bourgeoisie, one can understand that composers wished to respond to that fresh demand in writing all these salon pieces, reminiscences from operas or arrangements of popular songs with more or less bad taste. And as everybody wanted to play the piano without training a lot, the four hand compositions were a easy way to obtain a quite impressive result without high technical abilities. This overwhelming tendency brought unfortunately discredit on all the four-hand literature whatever it was written for one or two pianos. However some real artists managed to separate the wheat from the chaff like Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms who loved to perform Schubert’s pieces à quatre mains and who even played his Grand Duo on two pianos. But should we restrain to the exclusive duo-pianism, Romantic era’s contribution can be counted on fingers’ hands; however it contains some benchmarks of the piano literature. Young Mendelssohn’s idiosyncratic concertos for two pianos respectively in E major (1823) and in A flat major (1824) were actually found, exhumed and re-created by Gold and Fizdale in the 1950’s. The same Mendelssohn première Schumann’s Andante and Variations in B flat op.46 in its first version with two cellos and horn. Robert who was playing the other piano finally disliked the result and arranged the music for two pianos only. But he did not complete all the variations during the re-scoring, hence the two possible versions with a short one and a long one. In August 1843, the creation in this definite form took place at the Leipzig Gewandhaus played by Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann. Schumann: Andante con variazioni par le Duo Reding-Piette, Olympia London OCD 272. In a letter to his friend Tytus Wotciechowski Frédéric Chopin wrote: "In Sanniki I made a two-piano version of the Rondo in C that you may remember". It was in 1828 and Chopin was only eighteen, which can explain the salonesque style of this composition. Chopin did not publish it during his life- this is why the score bears the posthumous opus 73 dating 1855- and maybe used it with his students since he liked to teach them on two pianos, as related by Mikuli. This may explain the easier part of the second pianist. As far as the original Rondo in C for one piano two hands, it was found again in 1954 and published under the number B.26. Virtuous in his art was Liszt’s philosophy about virtuosity through which he intended to transcend the real and to escape from the vulgar. This approach that sustained his compositions places Liszt above all the mass pianists- arrangers as supported by the genesis and evolution of his Concerto Pathétique S.258. The original source of this concerto was actually his Grosseskonzert-Solo written in 1849 for the famous pianist Adolphe Henselt. Liszt eventually arranged it in 1865 for two pianos by adding a richer harmonic structure as well as an extension of the score. But this 1866 published version untitled Concerto Pathétique was not his ultimate since he went back working on this music as late as twelve years after. In 1877 Liszt achieved then a second version which he performed in Hamburg with one of his pupil, Ingeborg von Bronsart. At the era of cross-arrangement Edward Reuss, with Father Liszt’s benediction, re-scored the Concerto Pathétique for one pianoforte and orchestra. Other arrangements could also be listed including Pattison’s 1921 version which is for two pianos and orchestra. Discarding any speculation about the musical superiority of one version over the others it is blatant that the 1877 version, the most advanced written by Liszt’s hand, should be preferred by duo-pianists. Another Liszt’s composition for the combination of two pianos is worth of interest: his own arrangement of the twelve symphonic poems, a paramount of his overall production, whose present publications are unfortunately difficult to find. Needless to say Liszt’s compositions for two pianos were the best illustrations of his favorite motto, "L’orchestre, c’est moi." Brahms’s approach was somewhat the opposite as far as, although he adored the piano and was himself a great performer, the orchestra represented for him an unsurpassable realm of colors and dynamics. Consequently he considered the two piano ensemble as the best mean to grasp his compositions for orchestra like his symphonies. Clara Schumann’s partnership was obviously a very positive incentive since Johannes did respect, not to say admire, her pianistic skills as well as her musicianship critical sense. Among all the music they experimented on two pianos figures a Sonata in D minor which is a salient example of his creative thought processes. In 1854 Brahms intended to write his first symphony and started to draft it on two pianos. As he was progressing he incidentally decided to turn his work into a Sonata in D minor for two pianos which he created with Clara Schumann at Klems. About this sonata, Clara Schumann wrote: "I tried over the three movements of his sonata. They struck me as quite powerful, quite original, conceived with great breath and more clarity than any of his earlier works. We played them twice and, on Sunday, I shall play them with Dietrich." However Brahms, instead of publishing this sonata, used the first two movements to write his first piano concerto in D minor op.15. The story of his famous Sonata in F minor op.34 bis is somewhat the opposite since Brahms completed it in 1864 after his 1862 string quintet. He actually disliked this piece of chamber music with two cellos and even destroyed the manuscript after having turned it into the Sonata in F minor op.34 bis, a curious numbering notation since no op.34 had been published before. It is only during the summer that Brahms went back to his quintet project and completed what is now known as the F minor Quintet for piano and strings op.34 a. As far as the Sonata in F, Brahms played it with Karl Tausig on April 17, 1864 for a "All- Brahms- Evening" at the Singakademie. He also played it with Clara Schumann at Anna von Hesse’s, the dedicatee. It became rapidly good form to compare the sonata with the quintet and to comment about the superiority of one over the other. The same kind of discussion occurred with his Variations on a theme by Haydn op.56 b originally written for two pianos in 1873. Although the orchestral version bears the op.56 a it was written in parallel and published a year later. The theme of this piece is "The Chorale St Antoni" from the Feldpartita in B flat, Hob.II/46. Once again Clara Schumann joined Brahms to perform it during a off-session of the Schumann Festival in Bonn, held on August 17, 1873. Dernière Variation et finale des Variations sur un thème de Haydn par le Duo Reding-Piette, Olympia London OCD 271. It is incorrect to assert that Brahms arranged his third and fourth symphonies for two pianos since he had worked on this medium in order to establish his final orchestral projects. The names of sketch or draft would be more appropriate even if they already contain all the genius of the artist. Clara Schumann wrote in her diary "I have been able at last to play over the Third Symphony (arranged for two pianos) with Elise. When I had heard it the other day, I missed too much to have a real idea of its beauty. How I long to hear it again, now that I know every bar! It was cruel of Brahms to send me no more than half the arrangement. If I had been able to study the symphony before hand, what a difference it would have made!" The two-piano versions of these symphonies were issued by Brahms’s publisher, Simrock. Finally the word arrangement fits perfectly the five waltzes from op.39 written by Brahms for two pianos after his waltzes originally composed for four hands on one piano. Rachmaninoff spent the summer 1893 at the Lysikov’s cottage in the countryside of Lebedine. He enjoyed the possibility to concentrate on his compositions, alone among the whispers of nature. Knowing this propensity (not specific to Rachmaninoff since Mahler adored to do so when he went to Carinthie), Lysikov built a wooden hut at an extremity of his property especially for the composer’s attention. It is in this idyllic environment that the twenty year old Rachmaninoff wrote his Fantasia for two pianos, his Fantasia for Orchestra "Le Rocher" op.7, two pieces for piano and violin and a sacred concerto for choir never published but hold in the Glinka Museum. As far as the fantasia for two-pianos which subtitle Tableaux was to become used later on for other pieces, it is a four part program, clearly announced with four poetry as front’s pieces. Was this poetry the real source of Rachmaninoff’s inspiration or was it added after he wrote his music? The correspondences with the music are too evident to doubt about the first assumption. But if they fit Rachmaninoff’s artistic intention each movement is also a transcription of some strong feelings which transpired in his soul after important events of his life. His frequent visit to the Orthodox Church with his grandmother is for instance as important as the Khomyakov’s verses written before part four, untitled Russian Easter. Reading them is thus a good clue to sustain the interpretation albeit it is not sufficient.Among all the compositions written during that summer Rachmaninoff picked up the best one, his fantasia for two pianos, to offer it to his most admired composer, Tchaikowsky. His intention was to perform it with Paul Pabst in Saint-Petersburg but Rachmaninoff changed his mind and preferred to play his fantasia for orchestra "Le Rocher" which delighted Tchaikowsky. But several weeks after, while Rachmaninoff was conducting the premiere of his opera Aleka in Kiev he was sent a cable announcing that Tchaikowsky had passed away the 6th of November. He maintained the creation of his Fantasia-Tableaux for two pianos scheduled with Pabst on November 30 1893 in remembrance of his beloved musical godfather. Later on he went on playing this piece with Felix Blumenfeld during the Belaiev meetings. After several other afflictions Rachmaninoff recovered his willingness to compose during the year 1900. He started to write his second concerto op.18 and his Suite No2 for two pianos. The latter as well as his Sonata for cello and piano op.19 were actually initiated during the Italian trip with Chaliapine. He completed his Suite No2 during the spring 1901 and dedicated it to Goldenweiser. Bur Rachmaninoff premiered it with his cousin and sponsor Alexander Siloti in Moscow on November 24 of that same year. This suite differs from the Fantasia-Tableaux in G minor, not to say they are made of totally contrasting substance. With its four movements all rivaling together by their vividness and their light the Suite No2 is by far more extrovert albeit it dispenses some marvelous breaks devoted to reverie. The three first movements are in major with a martial march-like introduction, a very impressive Valse characterized by its alternations of breathless melodies with exquisite rubatos and a delightful Romance that shares the same spirit as the second piano concerto. The last part refers to an Italian folk-dance, the Tarantelle, that Rachmaninoff might have heard during his trip. Should we see the light of Italy or the freshness of a young composer who is recovering his acquaintance with Euterpe, this suite remains profoundly Russian by its melodic and harmonic architecture. It is interesting to notice that these two masterpieces represent the core of Rachmaninoff’s production for the medium whose alpha is his very little known Russian Rhapsody in E minor written in 1891 and whose omega would be his Symphonic Dances op.45 (1940) arranged for two pianos by the composer himself. Part V: The Golden XXth Century Copyright: Stéphane Villemin 2001 |