Piano duet is a music genre which finally matured in the 19th century. On the one hand, it was caused by the emergence of a hammer piano with extended capabilities when two pianists played. On the other, a democratic nature of the ensemble itself influenced its development.
A widespread tradition of home playing was an integral part of the propagation of the piano, which became a favourite and necessary instrument. It could be played solo, in various ensembles, and used to accompany singing and dancing. Therefore, four-hand compositions of the late 18th and early 19th centuries were accessible to many music lovers.
The heyday of piano duet concurred with the coming of romantic period of music art. That was the time when virtuoso musicians took the scene. Inviting a second pianist to perform compositions on the same instrument four hands in concert was a rare occasion. However, we are aware of some of them when Chopin and Moscheles, Clara Schumann and Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann and Liszt, Anton and Nikolai Rubinstein performed together. But these names are exceptions since four-hand duets when romantic piano art bloomed turned to be not that popular with performing pianists. Nevertheless, four-hand playing in a home environment remained as favourite and popular as ever. The music was perceived as an immediate conversation between kindred spirits.
Franz Schubert's creations played a special part in the development of a duet ensemble. Thanks to them the history of the genre entered its golden age. There was no other musician who left as many duet pieces as Schubert.
Despite the variety of genres, in terms of their artistic content and musical language, the composer's piano ensembles appear to be an ideal of chamber music in instrumental art of the romantic era.
This is what Robert Schumann wrote about Schubert in his study On Music And Musicians, “…if there is any one has a power to light the fire of music ardour in us, it is him with his four-hand pieces, which make the souls get closer faster than any words can.”
In the history of music, Schubert's heritage in the field of four-hand literature is peerless. None of the composers has that variety of forms of duet pieces – from lyrical dance miniatures to grandiose symphonic canvases. In his duets, Schubert is a successor of Mozart and Beethoven.
In Schubert's music in general and in his four-hand ensembles in particular, his inclination to the genre of miniature is very obvious, and this is a link with the traditions of Viennese home performance. He wrote waltzes, galops, ecossaises and marches. Also, there are ten polonaises four hands. Ceremonial ballroom polonaise was a prototype for his polonaises, but his music has a feel of the folk nature of the dance. Schubert's polonaises with their range, developed piano pattern and emotional abundance determined the further path of the polonaise development in Schumann's and Chopin's music.
The next composers who influenced the evolution of the piano duet were Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms. Apart from basic forms of duet, Robert Schumann composed 12 Piano Pieces for Small and Large Children.
Johannes Brahms's Hungarian Dances four hands were the first pieces which brought the young composer a worldwide fame. They are arrangements of Hungarian melodies which Brahms began to collect at a young age.
The Hungarian Dances are one of the highest achievements in the history of duet music. They showcased a widest range, richness of all registers, equivalence of parts, bright colours linked with reproduction of the timbres of dulcimers, violins, guitar and human voice.
Firma Melodiya presents recordings of the pieces by foreign composers of the 19th century performed by Alexander Bakhchiev and Elena Sorokina, a famous family ensemble and Golden Duet of Russia.
Their joint creative path has encompassed almost four decades of continuous concert and educational activity.
They have enlarged the borders of duet repertoire by paying special attention to four-hand literature in addition to works for two pianos. They are the performer who revived our interest to this type of performance, who laid a foundation for a new direction, which has now widely spread both on concert stage and in teaching. Their series of TV and radio programmes dedicated to Russian and foreign music are a great contribution to music culture.
The duet's concert programmes included such cycles as Bach, His Family and Pupils, All Duets by Mozart, All Duets by Schubert, Music of Old Vienna, Music Capitals of the World and others. Most of the cycles have been recorded and released.
The Golden Duet of Russia has taken part in many Russian and overseas festivals, toured in Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, Israel and Japan.
In 1989, Bakhchiev and Sorokina were elected presidents of the All-Union Association of Piano Duets of Russia, and in 1992, they became the first winners of the Kodama Prize in Japan.
