Adding the Missing Liszt
Fono Forum recently called them the "leading piano duo" in response to the release of their brilliant recording of Stravinsky's Sacre du Printemps and Debussy's En blanc et noir and Six épigraphes antiques. Andreas Grau and Götz Schumacher are active on many fronts. In addition to recitals and performances with orchestra, the duo, founded more than 25 years ago, is also known for its many projects off the beaten path. During rehearsals for a recording of Bartók's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion in the Berlin Philharmonie's chamber music hall, we spoke to the duo about programming and repertoire development.
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Innovative programming has always been a strong point for your duo, and when we look at the extremely diverse activities in your current schedule, it is truly striking how far you have expanded the repertoire and the "normal" activities of a piano duo. Your schedule includes commissions and collaborations, with the actor Klaus Maria Brandauer in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, for example, or with the video artist Stephan Boehme de Marco, combining music with visual projections in the program Kosmos. After more than 25 years, have you become bored with the usual piano duo repertoire?
GS: No, the standard repertoire for piano duo is in itself so varied that it can never get boring. People tend to think that piano duo or four-hand piano playing originated with the four-hand piano tradition of the Biedermeier period, and it's true that much of it comes from there. But there are also large chamber music works, there are great works for choir and four-hand piano or two pianos, and there is the huge realm of the orchestral concertos. Piano duo is actually more diverse than any chamber music formation. A string quartet does not have such diverse possibilities; a string quartet only has its repertoire. We also have our repertoire, if with repertoire you mean Schubert, for example, but we also have many other kinds of pieces, all of which are just as much a part of duo playing. The Bartók Sonata for two pianos and two percussionists, which we rehearsed this weekend, is a very central work in the literature for piano duo, despite the unusual orchestration. Brahms' Liebeslieder waltzes for four-part choir and four-hand piano are another example.
How is the programmatic approach to your recitals different from that of your CD projects?
AG: The dramaturgy required for a concert is naturally a little different; a CD is often more focussed on only one theme. For example, we wouldn't play Debussy and Stravinsky like that in a recital, but we wanted to emphasize the relationship between these two composers and to document their historical meeting in Paris. And when we learned that the four-hand version of Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps was played for the first time by Debussy and Stravinsky together, that Debussy was introduced to this revolutionary music while sitting next to Stravinsky at the piano, then it was clear that we had to combine them on a CD.
It's not always just the two of you who play together - you often play as soloists with orchestra. How much influence do you have on program planning in those cases?
AG: Not as much, though we were successful with a program suggestion involving Bernd Alois Zimmermann. Our idea was that if we were going to play Zimmermann's Dialoge, we should combine it with exactly those works that are quoted in the piece - so it would be the Pentecostal hymn, Debussy's Jeux, maybe also Mozart's Piano Concerto KV 467 and then Zimmermann's Dialoge at the end of the program. Of course if these pieces weren't quoted, no one would create a program like that, but there have already been two conductors who responded positively to the suggestion, and the result is a really special concert.
GS: We don't have control over the programming of an entire symphonic concert, but through the pieces that we contribute, we can still have a lot of influence on the program as a whole. Of course, we could decide that we're taking only the Mozart Concerto and the Poulenc Concerto on tour this year and that's enough. But we might also suggest a piece by Johannes Maria Staud that would otherwise never appear on programs anywhere, or Eötvös, or a piece by Glanert, or this Bartók concerto. These are pieces that have great programmatical influence on a symphonic concert, and this influence comes from us, because most conductors wouldn't necessarily be acquainted with these pieces. Many conductors are also not familiar with the Berio concerto.
AG: We have another idea for an entire symphonic program. When we play the Bartók concerto, we would like to put it in combination with the Mozart concerto for two pianos, because Bartók wrote cadenzas for it.
GS: We are already using this idea for a CD project - this spring we will be recording this combination with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin.
You have just premiered the Liszt Concerto Pathétique in the version for two pianos and orchestra composed by Stefan Heucke. It was commissioned by the Stuttgart Philharmonic and the idea originally came from the two of you. Why this piece?
AG: Until now, there was a gap in the repertoire. The big romantic piano concerto for two pianos and orchestra was missing - a double concerto by Schumann or Liszt or Chopin or Tchaikovsky, nothing like that existed. We came up with the idea together with the composer Stefan Heucke and it has a certain legitimacy in that this work exists in several different versions, both from Franz Liszt and from his students. There are two or three solo versions, several versions for solo piano and orchestra, and a version for two pianos, which we also play in our recitals - the only version that was missing was the one for two pianos and orchestra, and I am very happy with the result. It is very close to Liszt's version for two pianos, but the instrumentation goes far beyond Liszt. Toward the end of the concerto there is a large cadenza for two pianos, and this is pure Stefan Heucke.
Fono Forum recently called them the "leading piano duo" in response to the release of their brilliant recording of Stravinsky's Sacre du Printemps and Debussy's En blanc et noir and Six épigraphes antiques. Andreas Grau and Götz Schumacher are active on many fronts. In addition to recitals and performances with orchestra, the duo, founded more than 25 years ago, is also known for its many projects off the beaten path. During rehearsals for a recording of Bartók's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion in the Berlin Philharmonie's chamber music hall, we spoke to the duo about programming and repertoire development.
---
Innovative programming has always been a strong point for your duo, and when we look at the extremely diverse activities in your current schedule, it is truly striking how far you have expanded the repertoire and the "normal" activities of a piano duo. Your schedule includes commissions and collaborations, with the actor Klaus Maria Brandauer in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, for example, or with the video artist Stephan Boehme de Marco, combining music with visual projections in the program Kosmos. After more than 25 years, have you become bored with the usual piano duo repertoire?
GS: No, the standard repertoire for piano duo is in itself so varied that it can never get boring. People tend to think that piano duo or four-hand piano playing originated with the four-hand piano tradition of the Biedermeier period, and it's true that much of it comes from there. But there are also large chamber music works, there are great works for choir and four-hand piano or two pianos, and there is the huge realm of the orchestral concertos. Piano duo is actually more diverse than any chamber music formation. A string quartet does not have such diverse possibilities; a string quartet only has its repertoire. We also have our repertoire, if with repertoire you mean Schubert, for example, but we also have many other kinds of pieces, all of which are just as much a part of duo playing. The Bartók Sonata for two pianos and two percussionists, which we rehearsed this weekend, is a very central work in the literature for piano duo, despite the unusual orchestration. Brahms' Liebeslieder waltzes for four-part choir and four-hand piano are another example.
How is the programmatic approach to your recitals different from that of your CD projects?
AG: The dramaturgy required for a concert is naturally a little different; a CD is often more focussed on only one theme. For example, we wouldn't play Debussy and Stravinsky like that in a recital, but we wanted to emphasize the relationship between these two composers and to document their historical meeting in Paris. And when we learned that the four-hand version of Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps was played for the first time by Debussy and Stravinsky together, that Debussy was introduced to this revolutionary music while sitting next to Stravinsky at the piano, then it was clear that we had to combine them on a CD.
It's not always just the two of you who play together - you often play as soloists with orchestra. How much influence do you have on program planning in those cases?
AG: Not as much, though we were successful with a program suggestion involving Bernd Alois Zimmermann. Our idea was that if we were going to play Zimmermann's Dialoge, we should combine it with exactly those works that are quoted in the piece - so it would be the Pentecostal hymn, Debussy's Jeux, maybe also Mozart's Piano Concerto KV 467 and then Zimmermann's Dialoge at the end of the program. Of course if these pieces weren't quoted, no one would create a program like that, but there have already been two conductors who responded positively to the suggestion, and the result is a really special concert.
GS: We don't have control over the programming of an entire symphonic concert, but through the pieces that we contribute, we can still have a lot of influence on the program as a whole. Of course, we could decide that we're taking only the Mozart Concerto and the Poulenc Concerto on tour this year and that's enough. But we might also suggest a piece by Johannes Maria Staud that would otherwise never appear on programs anywhere, or Eötvös, or a piece by Glanert, or this Bartók concerto. These are pieces that have great programmatical influence on a symphonic concert, and this influence comes from us, because most conductors wouldn't necessarily be acquainted with these pieces. Many conductors are also not familiar with the Berio concerto.
AG: We have another idea for an entire symphonic program. When we play the Bartók concerto, we would like to put it in combination with the Mozart concerto for two pianos, because Bartók wrote cadenzas for it.
GS: We are already using this idea for a CD project - this spring we will be recording this combination with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin.
You have just premiered the Liszt Concerto Pathétique in the version for two pianos and orchestra composed by Stefan Heucke. It was commissioned by the Stuttgart Philharmonic and the idea originally came from the two of you. Why this piece?
AG: Until now, there was a gap in the repertoire. The big romantic piano concerto for two pianos and orchestra was missing - a double concerto by Schumann or Liszt or Chopin or Tchaikovsky, nothing like that existed. We came up with the idea together with the composer Stefan Heucke and it has a certain legitimacy in that this work exists in several different versions, both from Franz Liszt and from his students. There are two or three solo versions, several versions for solo piano and orchestra, and a version for two pianos, which we also play in our recitals - the only version that was missing was the one for two pianos and orchestra, and I am very happy with the result. It is very close to Liszt's version for two pianos, but the instrumentation goes far beyond Liszt. Toward the end of the concerto there is a large cadenza for two pianos, and this is pure Stefan Heucke.
Andreas Grau
Photo: Dietmar Scholz
Photo: Dietmar Scholz
Götz Schumacher
Photo: Dietmar Scholz
Photo: Dietmar Scholz