Vitaly Pisarenko & Henry Kramer - 4-Hands program

Because of the close physical proximity of the musicians, the piano duet is the most intimate form of chamber music. A fascinating genre!
With the exception of Schubert and Brahms, none of the great composers devoted a significant portion of their output to the piano duet. Schubert's great masterpiece was the Fantasia in F minor, a tragic drama unequalled by anything else in the duet repertoire. Schubert composed it in 1828, the last year of his life, and dedicated it to his pupil, Karoline Esterházy.
Fortunately, we do have many fine four-hand piano compositions from the early Romantic period. In the mid-to-late 1860s, Brahms produced his Hungarian Dances and Sixteen Waltzes. These are still popular, as is Bizet's Jeux d'enfants (1871), a charming set of twelve miniatures. Around the fifth decade of the twentieth century, Samuel Barber produced his composition Souvenir Suite Op.28, in the original arrangement, for one piano, four hands, later orchestrated for a ballet.

Vitaly Pisarenko, winner of the International Franz Liszt Piano Competition in Utrecht
Henry Kramer, winner of the Second Prize at the 2016 Queen Elisabeth Competition