Ravel Piano Duo

The pianist, composer, producer and renaissance musician Jeroen van Veen has played many concerts with both his wife Sandra and his brother Maarten, and has recorded with both of them for Brilliant Classics. The present compilation brings together a unique sequence of masterpieces for the genre in live and studio performances, made between 1992 and 2008, and given by the brothers as Piano Duo Van Veen.

Filled with French esprit, audaciously inventive in their spectacular piano parts, overflowing with catchy melodies, and vividly orchestrated, the double concertos on this 2004 CPO release are remarkable vehicles that every virtuoso piano duo should explore; and Aglika Genova and Liuben Dimitrov serve them up with all the brilliance and panache needed to bring these works proper recognition. Poulenc's Concerto in D minor for two pianos and orchestra is the best known of the three, a neo-Classical tour de force that sparkles with Parisian wit but evokes Mozart in many passages, most openly in the Larghetto.

This is a very fine delivery of these dances in their original 4-handed version. As many collectors will be aware, there are quite a few examples of composers initially writing works for the piano in various formats. This might be for solo piano (Ravel’s Alborada or La Valse for example), for two pianos (Rachmaninov’s Symphonic dances for example) or for two pianists at one piano such as here or as in the Brahms Hungarian Dances. In all these cases the original piano version was not written as a practice version for an orchestral version.

Andreas Grau and Götz Schumacher met in1981 at the ages of 15 and 16 and have worked together ever since. These transcriptions, mostly for two pianos, include Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, Saint-Saëns Introduction and Rondo capriccioso Op.28 and Rachmaninov’s Vocalise.

Unlike many piano arrangements, all these pieces have been arranged by the composers themselves for four hands. The Piano Duo Trenkner-Speidel presents these arrangements in authentic interpretations on a sonorous Steinway concert grand piano from 1901. Evelinde Trenkner and Sontraud Speidel have recorded a whole series of CDs on MDG exhibiting their perfect symbiosis.