Mozart / Reger / Busoni: Music for Two Pianos

András Schiff, Peter Serkin

ECM débuts for two of the greatest pianists of our time, artists of personal vision very seldom heard – as they are here – as piano duo. Recorded after an American tour in 1997, Schiff and Serkin deliver a programme that is in itself a kind of "art of fugue", beginning and ending with Mozart and embracing fugal compositions by Reger and Busoni. Serkin’s rigorous asceticism and Schiff’s elegant poetic touch are brought to bear on these works, as the players investigate the essential qualities of the music. A fascinating issue.

Featured Artists Recorded

November 1997, American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York

Original Release Date

29.03.1999

  • CD 1
  • 1Fugue in C Minor for Two Pianos KV 426
    (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
    04:15
  • Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Beethoven op. 86
    (Max Reger)
  • 2Theme: Andante02:01
  • 3Un poco più lento02:21
  • 4Agitato01:37
  • 5Andantino02:17
  • 6Andante sostenuto03:03
  • 7Appassionato01:31
  • 8Andante sostenuto02:56
  • 9Vivace00:58
  • 10Sostenuto02:17
  • 11Vivace01:17
  • 12Poco vivace01:36
  • 13Andante con grazia01:31
  • 14Allegro pomposo02:35
  • 15Fugue: Allegro con spirito05:48
  • CD 2
  • Fantasia contrappuntistica for Two Pianos BV 256b
    (Ferruccio Busoni)
  • 1Choral-Variationen09:57
  • 2Fuga I02:27
  • 3Fuga II02:39
  • 4Fuga III05:37
  • 5Intermezzo01:14
  • 6Variatio I01:17
  • 7Variatio II00:52
  • 8Variatio III01:03
  • 9Cadenza01:32
  • 10Fuga VI01:50
  • 11Corale00:51
  • 12Stretta01:49
  • Sonata in D Major for Two Pianos KV 448/375a
    (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
  • 13Allegro con spirito08:04
  • 14Andante10:13
  • 15Allegro molto06:24
An outstanding and unusual recording, marking the ECM New Series débuts of two very exceptional musicians.

András Schiff and Peter Serkin, friends for many years, have not often been duo partners, although they have made music together in other contexts (recent instances including performances of Bach's Double and Triple Concertos for Keyboard with the Camerata Bern.) In 1997, however, they undertook a brief North American tour together, preparing the material that they would record at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York of November of that year. A concert at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art brought forth a review from Bernard Holland in the New York Times, sub-headed "Proof that piano duos can be saved from marginality", suggesting it is precisely the strongly contrasting styles of these players - "poetic" is an adjective most often applied to Schiff's touch, while Serkin is frequently described as "austere" - that elevates their interpretations far above the congruent congeniality we associate with "the piano duo" as a fixed entity.

"[Where such] attractive musical couples entertain us, sometimes with clattering good cheer, almost always with a ghostly talent for togetherness, Mr Schiff and Mr Serkin, who are occasional partners at best, pointed out a number of things that their colleagues seem to lack, one being the subtlety and precision of true virtuosity, another being the sophisticated devotion to making heard what is naturally difficult to hear....Mr Serkin's rigorous asceticism in which clarity of sound takes precedence over beauty, is quite a distance from Mr Schiff's ever-thoughtful elegance." It can however be said that both players dispense entirely with the mannered gesture; from their differing standpoints they investigate the essential qualities of the music: "Shared was a single, consuming inquiry into how these pieces were made and what they say. Shared, too, the kind of enlightened caring that allowed separate contrapuntal strands within convoluted texture to have their own place and meaning...Mozart's D major sonata conveys a maximum of charm, the Reger and Busoni pieces are grand dramatic structures, the first with its Romantic tone and slippery harmonies, the second with a stony and impressive amalgam of Baroque and 20th-century rigour. Mr Schiff and Mr Serkin were as powerful in these two pieces as they were delightful in the sonata."

In his liner notes for "Music for Two Pianos", Klaus Schweizer looks at inter-relationships between the pieces, viewing Schiff and Serkin's concise programme of music by Mozart, Reger and Busoni as "a kind of Kunst der Fuge" in itself, "a three-fold attempt to direct the gaze, from changing points of view, at Bach, arguably the most inventive 'fugue maker' of all times. .. And the Mozart sonata, following the three fugue works, offers a new hearing experience...it radiates an overwhelming lightness and grace, temperament and esprit."

Ferruccio Busoni, who published a collection of aphorisms celebrating Mozart in 1906 - "He is the perfect and rounded figure, the sum total, an end not a beginning" - was also an ardent Bachian. His "Fantasia contappuntistica" was begun by the German-Italian composer in 1910 on a transatlantic liner, as its composer embarked on a US tour, was completed in its first draft in New Orleans and went through several versions for solo piano until revised for two pianists in the final, 1921 version. The "fantasy" involved is the imaginative "architectural" reconstruction, from fragments, of the final movement of the "Kunst der Fuge". A previous recording of the Fantasia by Serkin, with Richard Goode, was issued by CBS Masterworks.

Busoni and the Bavarian Max Reger were friends and correspondents, perhaps united in their musical open-mindedness, disdain for the polemic of the critics, and distance from trends of the day. Busoni found no contradictions inherent in expressing a love for both Mozart and Liszt, for instance, while Reger refused to align himself with warring camps in the Brahms versus Wagner debates of the late 19th century. Reger and Busoni - both of whom were also highly gifted pianists - agreed of course on Bach; indeed, Reger's predilection for counterpoint and Renaissance polyphony, and his mastery of techniques of variation and fugue, at one point earned him the nickname of "the second Bach".

The lengthy variations of Reger's op. 86, on a theme of Beethoven's, offer, as Klaus Schweizer notes, "considerable leeway - from a gradual transformation of thematic character to radical estrangement. Reger intentionally juxtaposes still audible figurative changes with extremely free passages, which pursue spin-offs of single motifs and acquire the independence of self-contained piano pieces. As always, the piano style seeks to achieve orchestral fullness and expansive gestural expression."

Mozart wrote only one sonata for two pianos, the Sonata in D Major K. 448/375a, of which Alfred Einstein was to write that "not a single shadow darkens its cheerful character. The artistry of balance and dialogue between the two pianos, the delicacy of the figuration, the sense of texture in blending and exploiting the registers of the instrument are all of such supreme mastery that the seemingly 'superficial' and enthralling composition becomes one of the most profound and mature Mozart ever wrote."

YEAR DATE VENUE LOCATION
2024 March 20 Gran Teatro La Fenice - Sale Apollinee Venice, Italy
2024 March 21 Gran Teatro La Fenice - Sale Apollinee Venice, Italy
2024 April 04 Kimmel Center for Performing Arts Philadelphia PA, United States
2024 April 05 Kimmel Center for Performing Arts Philadelphia PA, United States
2024 April 06 Kimmel Center for Performing Arts Philadelphia PA, United States
2024 April 18 The Anvil Basingstoke, United Kingdom
2024 April 19 The Sage Gateshead, United Kingdom
2024 April 20 Saffron Hall Saffron Waldon, United Kingdom
2024 April 21 Snape Maltings Concert Hall Aldeburgh, United Kingdom
2024 April 24 Queen Elizabeth Hall London, United Kingdom
2024 April 25 Queen Elizabeth Hall London, United Kingdom
2024 April 26 Queen Elizabeth Hall London, United Kingdom
2024 May 02 Teatro Olimpico Vicenza, Italy
2024 May 03 Basilica de Ss. Felice e Fortunatus Vicenza, Italy
2024 May 04 Teatro Olimpico Vicenza, Italy
2024 May 05 Teatro Olimpico Vicenza, Italy
2024 May 06 Teatro Olimpico Vicenza, Italy
2024 May 07 Teatro Manzoni Bologna, Italy
2024 May 11 Casals Forum Kronberg, Germany
2024 May 15 Casals Forum Kronberg, Germany
2024 May 18 Casals Forum Kronberg, Germany
2024 May 20 Haus für Mozart Salzburg, Austria
2024 May 26 Schloss Esterházy Eisenstadt, Austria
2024 May 28 Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Germany
2024 May 30 Teatro Donizetti Bergamo, Italy
2024 June 01 Teatro Communale Ferrara, Italy
2024 June 06 Wigmore Hall London, United Kingdom
2024 June 08 Wigmore Hall London, United Kingdom
2024 June 11 Musikverein Vienna, Austria
2024 June 26 Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Germany
2024 June 30 Château du Clos de Vougeot Burgund, France
2024 July 04 Palacio Carlos V Granada, Spain
2024 July 11 Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, Germany
2024 July 16 Pfarrkirche Lockenhaus, Austria
2024 July 23 Église de Verbier station Verbier, Switzerland
2024 July 25 Église de Verbier station Verbier, Switzerland
2024 July 27 Menuhin Festival- Kirche Saanen Gstaad, Switzerland