List of classical piano duos (performers)
The term piano duo can refer both to a genre of music, written for two pianists to play at either one or two pianos, or to the two pianists themselves.
This is a list of notable performers who appeared as piano duos in classical music. Most of these pianists performed works for piano four-hands (two pianists at one piano; also known as piano duet) as well as works for two pianos, often with orchestras or chamber ensembles. Some of these teams focussed exclusively or predominantly on this repertoire, but some also appeared separately as solo pianists.
Some piano duos appear under a single name (such as the Long Island Piano Duo), or a unified name (such as Nettle & Markham), but the majority simply use both their names (such as Katia and Marielle Labèque or Bracha Eden and Alexander Tamir).
People in this list should not be added to List of classical pianists unless they also had significant careers as solo pianists. However, if they recorded music requiring two pianists, they should be added to List of classical pianists (recorded).
List of classical piano duos
- Sorting note
- The main entry is sorted by the pianist whose surname appears earlier in the alphabet, and the other pianist is cross-referenced in smaller type. Where their names are usually referred to in a different order, or they use a special name for their duo, that entry appears in the 2nd column.
Members | Name of duo (where relevant) | Notes and references |
---|---|---|
|
Stephanie and Saar Duo | [1] |
Alexander and Daykin | [2] | |
|
Appleton and Field | Alan Hovhaness wrote his Symphony No. 45, Op. 342 (1954) for them, but they never played it.[3] |
seen in either order | ||
Vronsky & Babin | ||
|
Elena Sorokina and Alexander Bakhchiev | [4] |
|
||
|
Bartlett and Robertson | |
|
[5] | |
seen in either order | ||
Bradshaw-Buono Duo | Discography includes: Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, Fest-Polonaise, The Entrance of the Guests to the Wartburg, Benediction and Sermon, March and Cavatina and Fantasy and Fugue on the Chorale 'Ad nos, Ad Salutarem undam'.[6] | |
Bizjak Piano Duo | ||
|
Franz Liszt Piano Duo | They have recorded Bresciani's arrangement of Liszt's Dante Sonata, and Liszt's arrangement of the Dante Symphony.[7] |
|
Recorded Poulenc's complete music for 2 pianists.[8] | |
|
seen in either order | [9] |
|
Claire and Antoinette Cann | [4] |
|
Duo Caron | |
seen in either order | ||
|
[4] | |
|
Goldstone and Clemmow | Made the world premiere recording of the two-piano arrangement of Grieg's Concerto in A minor, written by Grieg and Károly Thern. Also the first recording of Grieg's piano version of the "Homage March" from Sigurd Jorsalfar.[10] They have recorded the piano duet version of Chopin's 2nd Piano Concerto in F minor (arr. Chopin and Carl Mikuli)[11][12] |
|
Clinton/Narboni Duo | [4] |
Richard and John Contiguglia | Made the first recording of Beethoven's 9th Symphony in the two-piano transcription by Franz Liszt; revived Victor Babin's Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra; gave New York premiere of Max Bruch's Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra in A flat minor; made many world premiere recordings of works by Liszt and Bartók.[13] | |
Duo Crommelynk | They were a very prominent duo, founded in 1974; their three-disc set of the four-hand works of Schubert won a Grand Prix du Disque; many composers wrote works for them. They both died by suicide on 14 July 1994.[14][15] | |
|
De Stefano Piano Duo | [16] |
|
[4] | |
|
Victor and Luis del Valle | [1] |
|
[4] | |
Genova & Dimitrov | Made world premiere recording of the complete piano duo works of Shostakovitch.[17][18] | |
|
Jordans & Van Doeselaar Piano Duo | [19] |
Wiener et Doucet | ||
|
D&B Duo | [20] |
|
Duo Egri and Pertis | [4] |
|
[4][21] | |
|
Duo d´Accord | Made the premiere recording of Clara Schumann's arrangement for piano 4-hands of Robert Schumann's Piano Quintet in E flat, Op. 44.[22] |
Ferrante & Teicher | ||
Gold and Fizdale | ||
|
||
|
||
Lillian and Irwin Freundlich | [4] | |
|
Yoshie and Takashi | [1] |
|
Gareis & Pohl | European premiere of J.Adams "Hallelujah junction" (2000)[23] |
|
||
|
Goldina & Loumbrozo | [24][25] |
|
[4] | |
|
Maribeth and Bradford Gowen | [4] |
|
Piano Duo Vis-à-vis | [1] |
|
Duo Tal & Groethuysen | |
|
Margherita Malagoli and Roberto Guerra | [4] |
|
Thomas Hecht and Sandra Shapiro | [4][24] |
|
Hernádi-Mocsári Piano Duo | Recorded works by Bartók, including a duo-piano arrangement of The Miraculous Mandarin.[26] |
|
[1] | |
|
Stecher and Horowitz Piano Duo | [27] |
|
Made the world premiere recording of 22 unknown original transcriptions by Sergei Rachmaninoff for piano for four hands after Tchaikovsky's The Sleeping Beauty.[28][29] | |
|
Piano Duo Humburger | [30] |
|
Frances Veri and Michael Jamanis | [4] |
|
[4] | |
Jacqueline Robin and Genevieve Joy | ||
|
Heidi and Alfred Kanwischer | [4] |
|
Kapsetaki duo | The Greek/British twins are concert pianists and scientists. |
Invencia Piano Duo | In collaboration with Naxos Records, on its Grand Piano series, they have released four CDs of Florent Schmitt's complete duo-piano works.[31][32][33][34] | |
|
Walter and Beatriz Klien | |
|
Recorded 17 CDs of all Brahms's arrangements for piano 4-hands or 2 pianos (mostly of his own music, but including Schumann's Piano Quintet in E flat.[35] | |
seen in either order | They have given first performances of works by Luciano Berio, Sylvano Bussotti, Mauricio Kagel, Karlheinz Stockhausen,[36] Henri Pousseur, Luis de Pablo and Bernd Alois Zimmermann.[37][38] | |
|
Kotlyar-Shifrin Piano Duo | [39][40] |
|
Koshka Piano Duo | [41] |
|
Valentina Lisista and Alexei Kuznetsoff | [4][42] |
|
Carles and Sofia piano duo | |
Rawicz and Landauer | Played mainly light classics and arrangements of existing works.[43] | |
|
||
|
Piano Duo Liva-Stregapede | They play unusual repertoire such as Saint-Saëns' 2-piano arrangement of Liszt's Sonata in B minor, and Shostakovich's arrangement of Honegger's Symphony No. 3; performed world premieres of works by Ástor Piazzolla, unpublished versions for 2 pianos and a version for piano duo by Casella of Beethoven's 9 symphonies, and Tchaikovsky's Pathetique Symphony.[44] |
|
Sviatoslav Richter and Vassili Lobanov | [45] |
|
LP Piano Duo | [1] |
|
Christine and Beatrice Long | [4] |
|
Longford-Brown Piano Duo | [1] |
|
Whittemore and Lowe | [46] |
|
Luboshutz and Nemenoff | [47][48] |
|
[49] | |
seen in either order | ||
[50] | ||
TwoPianists Piano Duo | [4] | |
|
[4] | |
|
Nettle & Markham | In 1985 they gave the UK premiere of Max Bruch's Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra in A flat minor (with Sir Charles Groves and the Hallé Orchestra) and they were the first duo to give concert performances of The Planets in Holst's own two-piano version.[51][52] |
Marlowe Brothers | ||
The first duo to record the entire works for piano duo/duet by Mozart. | ||
|
Morel-Nemish Duo | [24][53] |
|
[25] | |
|
[54] | |
The twin-sister piano duo are graduates of the Juilliard School and the Curtis Institute of Music, where they were each awarded the Festorazzi Prize. They are Steinway Artists and currently reside in New York City.[55] Christina and Michelle Naughton’s first album was released on the label ORFEO in 2012.[56] | ||
Nelson and Neal | ||
seen in either order | ||
|
[4] | |
Anthony & Joseph Paratore | William Bolcom wrote his Sonata in One Movement for them; they premiered Alban Berg's transcription of Arnold Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony, Op. 9; Dave Brubeck entrusted his original two-piano music to them and they premiered his "Points on Jazz". | |
Pekinel sisters or Güher and Süher Pekinel | ||
|
Irina and Maxim | [30] |
|
Rostal and Schaefer | [57] |
|
Schnabel formed this duo after the death of his first duo partner, his wife Helen Fogel (see Helen Fogel, Karl-Ulrich Schnabel) | |
|
[4] | |
|
Pas de Duo | [58] |
|
Susanne and Dinis Schemann | [4] |
Cyril Smith and Phyllis Sellick | Malcolm Arnold, Lennox Berkeley, Arthur Bliss, Gordon Jacob and Ralph Vaughan Williams all wrote concertos for them. | |
|
Trenkner-Speidel Piano Duo | They have made world premiere CD recordings of Max Reger's arrangements of Bach's works.[59] |
|
Stenzl Piano Duo | [25] |
|
Tengstrand-Sun Piano Duo | [4][60] |
Rose and Ottilie Sutro | The Sutro sisters have been described as "the world's first recognised duo-piano team", but Willi and Louis Thern preceded them by almost 30 years. Max Bruch wrote his Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra in A flat minor for them, but they never played it in its original form. | |
|
Teltschik Brothers | |
Willi and Louis Thern | Appeared in Europe from 1866. | |
|
Trimble Sisters | Arthur Benjamin wrote his best-known work, Jamaican Rhumba, for them.[43] |
|
Duo Turgeon | [17][61] |
|
Duo Petrof | [62][63] |
|
Piano Duo Varshavski and Shapiro | [16] |
|
[30] | |
|
Duo Zheleznov | [42] |
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 http://www.dranoff2piano.org/2008_teams.htm Archived December 5, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.
- ↑ http://www.juilliard.edu/update/journal/j_articles728.html
- ↑ hovhaness.com
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Duopianists
- ↑ The Dranoff International 2 Piano Foundation: 1995 Winners
- ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/1982/06/06/arts/piano-bradshaw-buono-duo.html
- ↑ Guardian
- ↑ Brown/Tanyel
- ↑ Great Pianists of the 20th Century: Lyubov Bruk and Mark Taimanov by Philips, Lyubov Bruk | 28945673622 | CD | Barnes & Noble
- ↑ Divine Art
- ↑
- ↑ Goldstone&Clemmow
- ↑ Contiguglias
- ↑ Answers.com
- ↑ Pianowomen
- 1 2 The Dranoff International 2 Piano Foundation: 2005 Winners
- 1 2 The Dranoff International 2 Piano Foundation: 1997 Winners
- ↑ Musicians Gallery
- ↑ http://www.bloomline.net/sites/biography.php?site=asd-pianoduo
- ↑ http://www.culturenet.hr/default.aspx?id=26150
- ↑ The Dranoff International 2 Piano Foundation: 1993 Winners
- ↑ The Dranoff International 2 Piano Foundation: 2001 Winners
- ↑ http://www.kultbau.org/gareispohl.html
- 1 2 3 The Dranoff International 2 Piano Foundation: 1987 Winners
- 1 2 3 The Dranoff International 2 Piano Foundation: 1989 Winners
- ↑ eclassical
- ↑ The New York International Piano Competition | Eliminating the Competition | By Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim - WSJ.com
- ↑ "Information on the work and the recording". Retrieved January 5, 2013.
- ↑ Discographie
- 1 2 3 The Dranoff International 2 Piano Foundation: 2008 Winners
- ↑ CD by ODU's Invencia Piano Duo Highlights Works of French Composer
- ↑ ODU Invencia Piano Duo Recording Praised in International Reviews
- ↑ Invencia Piano Duo
- ↑ Invencia Piano Duo
- ↑ Classical net
- ↑ Answers.com
- ↑ The Free Dictionary: Kontarsky, Aloys
- ↑ Kontarsky Brothers tour Southern Africa 1967
- ↑ The Dranoff International 2 Piano Foundation: 1999 Winners
- ↑ http://www.musiciansgallery.com/start/chamber/kotlyar/shifrin_piano_duo.htm
- ↑ http://www.yamaha.com/yasi/eventdetail.html?CNTID=5028940&CTID=560264
- 1 2 The Dranoff International 2 Piano Foundation: 1991 Winners
- 1 2 Pianists Part 3
- ↑ Liva-Stregapede
- ↑ Bartok, Concerto for Two Pianos, Percussion and Orchestra, Stephane Lemelin, Andrew Tunis (pianos); Kenneth Simpson, Jonathan Wade (percussion), Ottawa Symphony Orchestra/Davi...
- ↑ Arthur Whittemore, 69, Dies - Member of Two-Piano Team - NYTimes.com
- ↑ Pierre LUBOSHUTZ and Genia NEMENOFF duo-pianists: Mozart, Reger, Falla, Saint-Saëns on Remington
- ↑ Luboshutz and Nemenoff tour Southern Africa 1957
- ↑ Brenda Lucas Ogdon piano - Recordings
- ↑ Charles Bodman Rae, The Music of Lutoslawski
- ↑ Nettle/Markham
- ↑ Nettle/Markham
- ↑ Morel-Nemish Duo - The Canadian Encyclopedia
- ↑ Chamber Music Vol. 8: Amazon.ca: Music
- ↑ http://online.wsj.com/articles/christina-and-michelle-naughton-twin-pianists-perform-at-naumburg-orchestral-concerts-1407173152
- ↑ http://www.christinaandmichellenaughton.com/biography/
- ↑ Music - Rostal And Schaefer - Nytimes.Com
- ↑ Piano duo’s Arkadelphia visit encourages music education awareness « OBU News
- ↑ Orchestral Suites Max Reger arrangement for Piano Duo by Trenkner-Speidel Piano Duo at jsbach.org
- ↑ The Dranoff International 2 Piano Foundation: 2003 Winners
- ↑ TimeOut: Singapore
- ↑ http://www.webconcerthall.com/interview/petrof.htm
- ↑ http://aysymphony.org/about-ays/duo-petrof/