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| The Jerusalem Piano Duo - Dror Semmel, Shir Semmel (Dan Porges) |
"A Viennese
Morning - Piano 4 Hands" could not have been a more fitting title to the
concert performed by the Jerusalem Piano Duo - siblings Shir Semmel and Dror
Semmel - at the Eden-Tamir Music Center, Ein Kerem, Jerusalem, on March 23rd
2023. Dr. Dror Semmel, artistic director of the Eden-Tamir Center, spoke
briefly of the four-hand genre and the works on the program.
The piano duet – four
hands sharing one keyboard – was once an important part of musical activity, to
be enjoyed at home and in the cultural salons of Europe during the 19th and
early 20th centuries. In more modest times, the initial motivation to compose
for piano four hands was not so much the medium’s creative potential, but
rather for the opportunity it presented for enjoying proximity with one’s
playing partner at a time when such things were otherwise frowned upon. The
piano duet became increasingly popular as the modern piano was developing and being manufactured more cheaply, thus becoming the “must have” instrument
for the home. Composers and especially music publishers capitalized on this by
producing a wealth of sheet music for amateur pianists to enjoy. Of course, the
abundance of piano duet material for pianists of all levels constitutes an
important part of student=teacher repertoire. Music that is too much for one
player is easier with more hands helping. Then followed works for four
hands that were highly challenging and complex, catering to outstanding amateurs and professional players, today taking what began as
domestic and salon music onto the concert platform.
Franz Schubert left a large
legacy of music for piano four hands, extending to some sixty works. Largely
little-known today, most of these works were composed for domestic use at the
Schubertiades hosted by the composer’s Viennese friends. The Ein Kerem concert
opened with Schubert's much-loved Fantasy in F minor D.940, a work of four
movements combined into one. As to its title, the work relates both to the act
of "fantasieren" (German: improvise) and to "Fantasie"
(imagination.) It was dedicated to Karoline Esterházy, one of the students Schubert
taught on the Esterházy estates in Zseliz in 1818 and 1824. Legend has it
that the dedication to Karoline Esterházy is indicative of a possible
love affair between teacher and student. Opening with one of those heaven-sent
Schubertian melodies, one occupying a fragile place between nostalgic, sad
reminiscence and bliss, the artists gave expression to the manner in which the
epic Fantasy unfolds, as it shifts between major and minor, contrasting shadow
and light, sadness and happiness, with the artists (primo: Dror Semmel)
displaying control, articulacy, clean, unblurred textures and subtlety, also
exercising gentle flexing of tempi and giving articulate explication to its
fugal writing and hearty tutti.
Schubert's Allegro in
A minor D.947 "Lebensstürme" (Storms of Life) was written in May
1828, the last year of his life. This title was not given by the composer but
by Anton Diabelli who published it in 1840, presumably with an eye to the
market. However, the stereotyped sobriquet does little to prepare the listener
for the depth and breadth of what is in store. Possibly Schubert's star four-hand
composition, written only a month after the Fantasy, it offers us more than a
glimpse into Schubert’s inner life. The Jerusalem Duo artists probed the highly
dramatic work, with its extensive use of chromaticism and Neapolitan sixth
chords, a single-movement work which, by turns, is turbulent, passionate, tragic
and blissful. They brought out some rapturous moments of floating, otherworldly fragility,
their sensitively-shaped phrasing and powerfully built climaxes (in the fugue) emerging with conviction.
Mozart was one of the
pioneers of works for piano four hands, undoubtedly encouraged to do so through
his music-making on the harpsichord together with his sister Maria Anna (Nannerl), as
depicted in the famous family portrait by Johann Nepomuk della Croce (c.1780).
As his musical career progressed, Mozart created a small repertoire of masterful four-hand piano compositions that remain among the most admired and performed
of this genre. Sonata in F, K. 497, showing the composer exploiting
the opportunities inherent in this distinctive style of writing, was a
pioneering work, leading to impressive results. It is Mozart’s largest-scale
four-hand sonata and the most ferociously difficult of them. Shir and Dror Semmel
gave rhythmic spontaneity to the opening movement, a quest into imagination
with its enthralling exchange of musical ideas, not to speak of the many
moments echoing Mozart's operatic writing. The artists' performance of the
Andante movement brimmed with invention and noble gestures, to be followed by
their joyful but carefully paced playing of the final Allegro with its
delightful series of interwoven sonorities. Ten months after completing the F
major Sonata, Mozart finished his last full-scale foray into the genre of piano
for four hands with Sonata in C major K 521. Instead of the tight interweaving
of the four hands of K 497, Mozart establishes a more competitive relationship
between the two performers, with many passages in which they imitate each other
(with deviations). With Shir Semmel in the primo role, the artists launched
into the extended opening Allegro with zest and freshness, navigating its
dazzling dialogue with charm and fine contrasting. Following the full,
virtuosic texture of the Allegro, they balanced the Andante's pared-down
lyrical, dream-like outer sections with its more intense and contemplative
middle section, taking on the sonata's final movement, a good-humoured Allegretto, at a
moderate pace.
Performance by two
pianists simultaneously sharing a single piano requires not only a level of
intimacy unique to chamber music; it also presents its own set of technical
challenges. Once again, Shir and Dror Semmel's performance brought home that the four-hand
genre has qualities that can’t be found in any other form of collaborative
playing, characterizing a melding of two players and four hands into one
musical organism. Their performance was finely detailed, rich, polished and
rewarding. Despite the fact that the four-hand piano repertoire is
primarily associated with domestic music-making, the size and intimate ambience
of the Eden-Tamir Music Center’s hall makes for a good second!
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| Mozart Family portrait painted by Johann Nepomuk della Croce |
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