Customer Reviews

Mozart: Sonata for 2 Pianos in D Major, K. 448; Schubert: Fantasia for Piano, 4 Hands in F Minor, D 940

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The credentials of both of the two soloists here - Murray Perahia and Radu Lupu - are impeccable as individual interpreters of the works of both Mozart and Schubert and so it should come as no surprise that as they sit at the same keyboard the result is nothing less than satisfying.

For this listener the highlight of this recording is the splendid composition by Schubert - the 'Fantasia for piano, 4 hands in F minor', D. 94. The work contains some of his most haunting melodies in his oeuvre and Perahia and Lupu find that degree of harmony that makes the piece truly sing.

The Mozart works (Sonata for 2 Pianos in D Major, K 375), the Fantasia for mechanical organ in F minor, K. 608 and Variations on an original theme for piano, 4 hands in G major, K. 501) are of interest not only because they are rarely heard, but also because of the intelligent music making Perahia and Lupu bring to their interpretations. Without a score in hand it is difficult to know which exposed parts are being played by which soloist and that is as it should be. The two pianists mirror each other and respect the performances in a way that is a welcome unified sound.

Works for extended piano keyboard, whether that be on the same keyboard or on two pianos, are too infrequently performed for obvious reasons. But here we have two of our finest pianists on a CD that is available at the press of a button. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, July 06

Schubert's F minor Fantasy is the greatest work for piano 4-hands. To my ears, indeed, it comes close to the summit of all music. The piece is beyond imagining. You cannot believe that there is music this beautiful until you actually hear it. Some say that listening to Mozart will make you smarter. Maybe so -- and that's great -- but listening to Schubert (and in particular the F minor Fantasy) will make you happier.

The F minor Fantasy has always drawn great artists to it and has been much and well recorded, by such duo pianists as Eschenbach-Frantz, Richter-Britten, Aebersold-Neiweem, Gilels (Emil)-Gilels (Elena), Levin-Bilson, Schnabel (Helen)-Schnabel (Karl), the Paratore brothers, the Pekinel sisters, and Brendel-Crochet, to name only a few. I own more than 30 recordings of the piece. Astonishingly, all are rewarding; many are sublime.

Even within this lofty group, the Lupu and Perahia recording stands out. Their playing combines clarity and rhythmic propulsion with a kind of dreamy relaxation. This may sound impossible, but Lupu and Perahia accomplish it with supple inflection and finely shaded dynamics in the musical lines, while maintaining rigorous metrical exactitude. The closing section (a combination of recapitulation and coda wrapped around a driving fugato) is perhaps the greatest 5 minutes of recorded music that I have heard. The tempi here are slower than in many other recordings. This is ideal, because the overwhelming feeling you get from this music is to want it to last forever. The perfect tempo is the slowest one that maintains strong forward movement. Lupu and Perahia achieve this effect, among many artful touches, with the elasticity of their phrasing. Also, the sound is impeccable. I doubt the F minor Fantasy can be played better or recorded with greater fidelity.

The clincher here is that Amazon.com sells the entire F minor Fantasy (almost 20 minutes of music) as a single mp3 file for 99 cents. Moreover, Amazon.com is the only online music store where you can buy this recording of the F minor Fantasy without buying the entire album. So buy it. Pound for pound, it will be the best 99 cents you ever spent.

That said, the rest of the album is superb as well, including an exemplary recording of Mozart's D major sonata for two pianos.

A superb collaboration of two great pianists recently remastered for better sound quality. Masterful music but perhaps a divergent coupling. This performance was given high marks by major reviewers (Gramophone). See original CD issue for more reviews on Amazon.

The Mozart D Major Sonata and the Schubert F Minor Fantasia together represent the summit of the four-handed piano literature. One is sublimely joyous, the other sublimely tragic, and on this CD they present a fascinating study in contrasts, like Falstaff and Hamlet.

The first version of the Mozart D Major I ever heard was the Hungaroton LP released in the '70s, performed by Deszo Ranki and Zoltan Kocsis. I prefer the special brio Ranki and Kocsis gave this work to the more placid version on this CD; but that is the only, very mild, criticism I have of the suave, elegant and masterful performance by Radu Lupu and Murray Perahia. As for the Schubert, there is very little I can add to the intelligent and detailed review by Joseph Isenbergh. The version by Emil and Elena Gilels seems to be the most passionately beloved of this work on disc; the Kissin-Levine version has both its defenders and its detractors. All I can say is that the Perahia-Lupu version offers discriminating listeners everything it should, and then some.

I had not heard either the Mozart Mechanical Organ fantasia or the Andante and Variations before I bought this disc, but they are beautiful and more than just lagniappe. (Note that in the Mechanical Organ fantasia Perahia and Lupu restored sections that Busoni omitted in his original transcription.) This is a magnificent CD at any price, and at its bargain price it's a must-have for anyone who loves this music.

There is not much to add to what has already been said, this is definitely the best available option for anyone interested to buy Schubert's fantasy in f-minor for 4 hands. Stay clear of the terrible performance and recording by Richter and Britten!

I've been listening to the original disc for at least 20 years. As I type this, I'm listening to the Fantasy, perhaps Schubert's most underrated masterpiece. This is a work that ages like fine wine and for me, it is my desert island piece. It is tragic, uplifting and achingly beautiful. It is masterfully played by Lupu and Perahia. This is a classic example where the sum is greater than the 2 parts.

As one of the reviewers has already pointed out, the Mozart I consider the greatest work ever composed for 2 pianos. Mozart composed famous piece but one has to admit that D major sonata has never achieved what, for example, Jupiter Symphony and Don Giovanni have. This is a shame. The allegro molto movement is as scintillating of a performance as you'll find. Clearly, it is my favorite Mozart keyboard music.

I have all of major 4-hand, 2-piano recordings and I can't think of another recording that illustrates the potential of the 4 hand, 2-piano medium. This disc (the original 40min disc) has never gone out of print and I suspect that, like Gould's original Goldberg Variations, it will be around for a long time.

Repertoire for piano duo (four-hands) and two pianos may seem ephemeral; it is surprisingly rare in the concert hall, despite the quality of the music written for this medium by its greatest exponents (Mozart, Schubert, Brahms, Rachmaninoff). The superb compilation on this CD (taken from two previous issues) could well stand as an introduction to this repertoire for neophytes, since it includes what is arguably the greatest work ever written for two pianos (Mozart's scintillating Sonata in D, K. 448) and one of the greatest for piano duo (Schubert's sublime and deeply tragic f-minor Fantasia). Two substantial bonuses follow: Mozart's delightfully cheeky Variations K. 401 and his stormy f-minor Fantasia, K. 608, originally written for "mechanical clock" and thereafter subjected to many different transcriptions by many hands--including this one by Busoni for piano duo.

Lupu and Perahia are just the right artists for this repertoire. Their collaboration is marked by a remarkable unanimity, sensitivity, and cogency. The two major works listed above were taken down at a live performance in Maltings, Snape, and convey a riveting sense of occasion (the audience is virtually inaudible). Perahia and Lupu bring a delectable sparkle and lightness of touch to Mozart's two-piano Sonata that rivals the classic Brendel-Klien recording on Vox. Yet Perahia and Lupu sound greater depths in the slow movement; they manage to weave a mysterious spell in the hushed, chromatic-inflected secondary theme that makes Brendel/Klien seem almost matter-of-fact. In the Schubert four-hand Fantasia, Perahia and Lupu are also up against formidable competition, including the Brendel's outstanding collaboration with Evelyn Crochet (also on Vox), among many others. Suffice it to say that Perahia and Lupu are second to none in expressing the haunting pathos of this work; their concentration and dramatic sweep are formidable, though they never slight the work's ebullient balletic qualities--particularly in the scherzo section. The two "encores" evince similar virtues. In Mozart's variation set, Perahia and Lupu are alive to every shift of mood and rhythmic nuance (there are many during the course of this relatively brief work); and in the great Fantasia for Mechanical Clock they build inexorably from the austere "French overture" dotted rhythms of the opening (which serves as a kind of unifying ritornello throughout the work), through the various neo-baroque fugal episodes and contemplative middle section, to the defiant, angry-young-man conclusion. Mozart rarely shook his fist at the heavens, but in this amazing piece he anticipates Beethoven's most Promethian manner.

In sum, then, this CD represents a superb recital by two of the most outstanding pianists of their generation (even if it was assembled from two prior sources). These two recreative geniuses think and play as one, and the result is a formidable accomplishment. The sound in the live recordings from the Maltings is superb--warm, clear and beautifully balanced. The studio acoustic for the remander of the program is less expansive, even cramped in comparison. But that one qualification should not deter anyone who wants to begin an exploration this still under-appreciated repertoire. Strongly recommended.

I bought this recording in anticipation of the recent James Levine-Daniel Barenboim performance of the Schubert Fantasy as part of a Boston Symphony concert (along with Eliot Carter's new piece and Stravinsky's Rite of Spring).

It is everything it's cracked up to be - lucid, dramatic, full of feeling, and above all, technically perfect in ensemble. The Mozart pieces are just as good.

As much as I enjoyed Levine and Barenboim, this recording is infinitely better.

This CD features pianists Murray Perahia and Radu Lupu performing three Mozart pieces and the Schubert Fantasia in f (D.940). The Mozart works are the Sonata for Two Pianos in D (K.448), the Fantasia in f (K. 608) originally written for a mechanical organ device, and Andante and Variations in G (K.501). Perahia and Lupu are top-rated pianists, and it's no surprise that they give splendid performances of all four of these piano duo compositions.

The Mozart sonata is one of his finest works, and the second piano part adds both complexity and sonority - compared to the solo sonatas. The Mozart Fantasia in f has been transcribed into several different arrangements: organ, solo piano, chamber wind ensemble, and orchestra, as well as the piano duet heard here. It's probably most successful (and closest to what was intended by Mozart) as a pipe organ arrangement, but Perahia and Lupu manage to give it an almost organ-like sonority in their performance of this three-part work, and the result is quite thrilling. The Andante and Variations is a more modest piece, but the theme and ensuing five variations are played well by the piano duo and make for enjoyable listening.

But the most memorable work on this CD is the Schubert Fantasia. This piece is essentially in four movements, but they are joined to form a continuous composition. The melancholy principal theme of the first movement is repeated in the fourth movement, and the first movement's second theme is transformed into a fugue in the last movement. The second movement is a quiet interlude bookended by strongly syncopated chordal progressions, and the third is a fully worked out scherzo and trio. The fugal theme bears a resemblance to Mozart's main theme (also treated fugally) in the finale of the Jupiter Symphony, but Schubert's theme is syncopated and mostly cast in the minor mode. Schubert wrote several pieces for piano duo, but this Fantasia is probably the greatest of them.

As other reviewers have noted, Perahia and Lupu play excellently together as a team They provide the right balance between structural clarity and emotional impact, in my opinion. The sound quality is excellent overall. The Mozart Sonata and the Schubert Fantasia were apparently recorded at live performances, but no audience noise is audible and the sound is very clean though full. The other two Mozart works were recorded in a studio, and the sound, while still quite excellent, is a bit less resonant.

One of the oddities of this CD is that all four movements of the Schubert are on one track, whereas the Mozart Fantasia, also with connected sections, occupies three tracks. I think it would have been possible to divide the Schubert Fantasia into four tracks. Even more strangely, the Andante and Variations is spread over six tracks, even though none is longer than two minutes and the whole piece is only about eight minutes.

Overall, this is truly an outstanding CD, with top notch performers playing some of the greatest piano duo music of Mozart and Schubert. One reviewer has suggested that this disk would be his desert-island selection, and I agree that for those who love piano music, this CD should definitely be in the running. There's great music marvellously performed here!

From my very first review at Amazon.com back in 2000:

"This recording has never been out of print since it came out in 1987. There's a good reason for that: it's a classic recording by two of the most elegant, musical pianists we have today. Even though writing Hausmusik [music for amateurs to play for their own pleasure] Schubert didn't stint; the Fantasy is one of his greatest masterpieces, and the performance here is stunning. Listening, one forgets to breathe."

Scott Morrison