Per Pianoforte A Quattro Mani (O Due Pianoforti). Par CALLIGARIS SERGIO. Sergio Calligaris was born in Rosario (1941), Argentina. He is one of the last musicians to incarnate the traditional 19th century figure of pianist, teacher and composer, inaugurated at the beginning of the 19th century by Muzio Clementi and carriedon after that by a sequence of famous names that the history of music has handed down to us. As a pianist, he began to give public performances at the age of 13, making his debut in his home town Rosario. Following this success, he embarked upon an extremely busy career as a soloist, giving numerous recitals in Buenos Aires and other citiesin Argentina. He continued to take advanced lessons with eminent exponents of the most prestigious international piano schools. In 1974 he became an Italian citizen and settled in Rome, teaching piano as principal instrument at the S. Pietro a Majella StateConservatory in Naples, the Luisa DAnnunzio Conservatory in Pescara and the Alfredo Casella Conservatory in Aquila. As a composer, he began - at just 9 years of age - to study in the rigorous school of Paul Hindemith, under the guidance of Father Luis Machado, from whom he inherited a love of counterpoint and a strong taste for harmony. He took a diploma incomposition, counterpoint and fugue at the age of 16 at the Amigos del Arte Society in Rosario, going on in 1964 to do an advanced course in 12-tone counterpoint at the Cleveland Institute of Music. The catalogue of his compositions, which has nowreached Op. 55, encompasses a huge range of instrumental/vocal chamber music and symphonic works: a vast and articulated catalogue, in which Sergio Calligaris’s composition expresses its inspiration through the dramatic development of a dialecticalcontrast between the two natures of the composer’s personality - the elegiac and the dithyrambic - which confront and interact with each other giving rise to artistic outcomes of a deeply moving nature. / Niveau : Intermédiaire à Avancé / Répertoire / Piano 4 Mains

Cornelius Gurlitt is one of the co-founders of 19th-century piano teaching. Going on from the method of Carl Czerny, his rich educational material is extremely topical even today. Der Anfänger is a collection of little pieces for four hands with an easy primo and a somewhat more difficult secondo part which are ideal for music lessons at elementary and intermediate levels or as duos for pupil and teacher. In the primo part, the hands for the most part play in unison - due to an inventive harmonic accompaniment, however, the little pieces become musically interesting exercises. The level of difficulty increases with regard to rhythm, articulation, time and key as well as dynamics and possibilities of musical interpretation. Thus, this colourful collection of highly different settings - from the solemn adagio via fast movements, little marches, chorales and dance forms to the virtuoso tarantella - is a valuable addition to the music teaching literature. / Piano 4 Mains

Arrangement for Piano Fourhands-In the 19th century arrangements for Piano four-hands were usually versions which people played at home if the works could not be heard in concert. In cases such as these Brahms did not however just make functional versions butcreatively transcribed his works for the piano. As the composer he allowed himself greater freedom than arrangers for publishers did. In this form his arrangements greatly contributed to the success of his works in musical life inthe 19th century. It is on account of their creativity that Brahms’ arrangements have attracted new interest in musical circles over the last few decades. This Urtext edition of the Symphonies nos. 1 and 2 for piano four handsoffers a scholarly musical text following the recently published volume in the Brahms Complete Edition.

Works For Piano Duet-'Flee the storms.' Reynaldo Hahn (1874-1947) put this motto of classical artists at the heart of his music for piano four hands preferring the balance of proportions to the roar of passions the eclecticism of good taste charm and delicacy. Berceuses falls within the French tradition of children's music such as illustrated by Fauré's Dolly and Ravel's Ma mère l’Oye. These seven pieces evoke with refinement the happiness of a cloudless day the effervescence that reigns on Christmas Eve or the gentle syncopated rocking of a young Creole Selfiana. The Variations puériles sur une mélodie de CarlReinecke manifest a free whimsical vein whereas the Trois préludes sur des airs irlandais drink at the pure sources of folk music borrowing their thematic material from the famous collection Songs of Old Ireland which Stanford had brought out in 1882. Published for the first time from a handwritten score the Variations sur un thème de Charles Levadé end with a wild quadrille that takes the heroes of the celebration to the nearest inn. The Pièce en forme d’aria et Bergerie from 1896 finely polished takes up with the ambiance of the pastorale popular in the 17th century.

From the dynamic rhythms of its opening Prelude and the luxurious harmonies of Meditation and the breathless Toccata Carl Vine’s Sonata for Piano Four Hands (2009) packs a wide range of styles and emotions into its 23-minute span reinvigorating a much-loved chamber music genre for the 21st Century.

This work is a demanding somewhat exotic piece for moderately advanced students.Composer and pianist Thomas A Johnson’s name is familiar from his many compositions and arrangements for Piano students throughout the 20th century particularly his Piano duets. Johnson spent his early years as accompanist for silent movies then after his training appeared frequently on the radio and gave recitals.

Peter Dickinson (b. 1934) is a British composer pianist and academic. He studied at Queen’s College Cambridge and the Juilliard School in New York and has since held professorships at Keele University and Goldsmiths’ College. His compositions are firmly in the 20th century idiom drawing heavily on influences from Cage Ives and Satie.Five Forgeries is a collection of Piano duets written in 1963. Each duet is written in the style of a different composer with movements inspired by Poulenc Hindemith Stravinsky Delius and Bartok. The collection is dedicated to the great composer Lennox Berkeley(1903-1989) who was Professor of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music for over 20 years and came to define the post-war generation of British composers.

Sympathetic arrangements with optional practice backing tracks and performances on the accompanying CD. All highly playable.In the interests of playability the strict formality of Pachelbel's 'Canon' has been relaxed while allowing the spirit of the original to shine through. The key has been simplified from D major to C major and the seventeenth century rhythmic notation updated to improve readability. The optional Companion CD allows for small 12 bar sections (between each of the rehearsal letters) to be practised both 'slowly' with metronome click) and 'a tempo' before putting the whole piece together — ideally in the company of another human!

Works by Beethoven, Bizet, Debussy, Dvorak, Faure, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Schumann. Edited by Morey Ritt./ Recueil / Piano 4 Mains