WQXR Broadcast: Leif Ove Andsnes and Marc-André Hamelin

On Friday evening, New York City's classical music station WQXR broadcast a live performance from Carnegie Hall given by Leif Ove Andsnes and Marc-André Hamelin, two of the finest pianists now active.  This joint recital gave the audience the rare opportunity to hear works written for two pianos by Mozart and Debussy, but the real focus was on Stravinsky's music

The program opened with Mozart's Larghetto and Allegro for Two Pianos in E-flat major, K. deest, an unfinished work completed by the Austrian pianist Paul Badura-Skoda.  Consisting of only two movements, this was no more than a fragment most probably composed in Vienna c. 1781-1783.  It may have been written as a pedagogical tool for Mozart to play with one of his students, or he may have intended to perform it with Josepha Auernhammer with whom he did in fact play the Sonata for Two Pianos in D major, K. 488 written around the same time.  The present work, such as it is, was hardly a masterpiece, but anything written by Mozart is well worth hearing and this was no exception.

The next work was Stravinsky's Concerto for Two Pianos (1935).  Although the term "concerto" is customarily used to designate a work in which one or more solo instruments performs with orchestra, the title of this work, for two pianos alone, was chosen deliberately.  The composer was here attempting to devise a piece that could be played together with his son Soulima in cities not large enough to have their own orchestras.  The work was ingenious in many respects, not least in Stravinsky's decision to invert the third and fourth movements so that the variations contained in the one are actually heard before the theme itself in the other.  Stravinsky also outdid himself in the various combinations in which the two pianos partnered themselves - sometimes they played together and sometimes against one other.  In this, the composer was aided by a custom double piano he had specially built to his specifications.  The entire piece was vintage Stravinsky, at once witty and ironic and yet deadly serious in purpose.  He himself considered it his favorite among his instrumental works.

The first half of the program closed with Debussy's En blanc et noir (1915).  This late work was not composed in the happiest of circumstances.  Not only was World War I reaching a crescendo of violence but Debussy himself was nearing death from the cancer that had first been diagnosed in 1909 (he would undergo major surgery later in 1915 in a futile attempt to stay its course).  Perhaps realizing that his end was near, Debussy indulged in a frantic burst of creativity during this period that also saw the composition of the Sonata for flute, viola and harp and the Études for solo piano.  These were all major works and there can be no doubt that Debussy viewed them as his legacy.  Accordingly, as though tying up loose ends, each of the three movements in the present work was dedicated to a different individual - respectively, Serge Koussevitzky, Jacques Charlot, and Igor Stravinsky.  The least known of the three was Charlot, an associate of Debussy's publisher Durand who had recently been killed while serving at the front.  It is in the somber middle movement, that dedicated that Charlot's memory, that Debussy's anti-German sentiments can most clearly be heard.  As if to drive the point home, the composer prefaced that section in the score with a quote from Villon's Ballade contre les ennemis de la France.  Debussy himself rightly considered this the finest of the three movements.  While the title En blanc et noir most obviously refers to the contrasting colors of the piano keys, I think Debussy may also have intended it as a reference to the war itself which he saw as an epic struggle between the forces of good and evil.

After intermission, the musicians returned to perform another Stravinsky work, his reduction of Le sacre du printemps (1913) for two pianos.  As for Le sacre itself, little remains to be said.  It was quite simply the most revolutionary work of the twentieth century.  The effects of Stravinsky's radical experimentation with rhythm are still being felt today.  Its modernism, however, has often caused listeners to overlook its roots in Russian folk sources.  In some ways, Stravinsky was as much a nationalist as any of the members of "the Five."  That being said, I've come to admire the piano version almost as much as the full orchestral version, at least when played by such virtuosi as on this occasion.  Originally completed merely as an aid to rehearsing the dance numbers for the first Ballets Russes production, the reduction, if anything, allows the listener to better appreciate the driving rhythms at the core of the work.

There were several encores, all of them by Stravinsky, including his Tango as well as his "infamous" Circus Polka.  The two musicians have been touring with this same program, prior to the release of an all-Stravinsky recording, and on Friday evening gave a terrific performance that was very well received by the audience.  WQXR generally archives these live performances from Carnegie Hall on its website for at least a few weeks and this one is now available.  Click here to hear the performance.