Juilliard Faculty Recital: Adelaide Roberts and Matthew Odell

It's always fascinating to watch a piano recital for four hands and see two musicians at the keyboard playing as a single unit.  Yesterday evening's program at Paul Hall was a joint recital by two Juilliard Faculty members, Adelaide Roberts and Matthew Odell and featured one work by Schubert and two by Debussy.

Schubert's Sonata for Four Hands in B-flat Major, D. 617 (1818), published under the name "First Grand Sonata," was written while the composer was employed as court musician to Count Johann Esterhazy as well as music tutor to his daughters.  This a youthful piece written the year before the Piano Quintet in A and predating the later Four Hand Sonata in C, D. 812 by about six years.  Though it lacks the scope and maturity of the later "Grand Duo" Sonata, it's still an innovative work and absorbing to hear.

Debussy's Six Epigraphes Antiques (1914), with such evocative titles as Pour un tombeau sans nom, are based on Pierre Louÿs' sensual Chansons de Bilitis and exist in several forms.  The movements originally were written as incidental music to accompany a recitation of Louÿs’ poems, then were arranged by the composer for the four hand piano version heard yesterday evening and still later for a reduced solo piano version.  In addition, there were arrangements done after Debussy's death for chamber orchestra as well as the ballet Antique Epigraphs choreographed by Jerome Robbins for the New York City Ballet.

Debussy's Symphonie in B Minor was written when he was only 18 years old while still a composition student at the Paris Conservatoire.  This is as close as he ever came to writing a formal symphony.  At the time he was music tutor to the daughters of Nadezhda von Meck, patroness of Tchaikovsky.    According to one source:

"Debussy spent his holidays in the years 1880 – 1882 in Madame von Meck entourage. He would play for her on the piano, and together they performed piano duets of music she specially liked, especially pieces she had received from Tchaikovsky. At her request, he also made piano arrangements of dances from swan lake."

Bearing in mind Debussy was in love with von Meck's daughter and wanted to marry her, it's intriguing to imagine the pair seated beside one another on the piano bench.