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Lo<\/strong>ng before the 18th century, when composers first began writing music for two players sat at the same piano<\/a>, fellow students and amateur keyboardists had been helping each other out, filling in challenging passages where two hands were stretched to their physical limits.<\/strong> <\/p> One might, therefore, have expected early attempts at piano duet composition to have revelled in the enhanced virtuoso opportunities available to four hands working simultaneously at one instrument, or harness the potential for richer sonorities and textures. <\/p> Yet the initial impulse to compose for piano four hands was not so much the medium\u2019s creative potential, but rather the wonderful opportunity it presented for enjoying a proximity with one\u2019s playing partner at a time when such things were otherwise frowned upon. <\/p> The first major composer to show a special interest in the medium was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart<\/a><\/strong>. His inspiration came from playing duets with his sister Nannerl while on tour. He also joined Johann Christian Bach at the piano in London, a performer with whom he had previously studied. Dating from around this time is the possibly spurious duet Sonata in C K19d. It features an exuberant rondo finale in which the secondo <\/i>player plays one episode with their right hand over the left of the primo <\/i>(female) player. The primo <\/em>was usually a female player, while the secondo<\/em> was situated on the left and traditionally male). Assuming it was his work, Mozart\u2019s childhood imagination clearly knew no bounds. <\/p> In 1777, music historian Charles Burney composed a set of four duet sonatas, which critics generally consider to be the first to appear in print. Also around this time, JC Bach composed three enchanting duet sonatas and Muzio Clementi produced two sets of three (from Op. 3 and Op. 14). Yet it was Mozart\u2019s later music for piano duet that put the fledgeling genre on the musical map. These include two teenage sonatas Kk358 and 381, both full of Italianate sunshine brilliance. It is the sonatas Kk497 and 521 for whom Mozart specifically tailored this exquisite gem. He dedicated 521 to two gifted young sisters, Babette and Nanette Natorp.<\/p> Neither Haydn<\/a><\/strong> nor Beethoven<\/a><\/strong> composed anything of significance for this most convivial of genres \u2013 the former due possibly to his social isolation based at the Esterh\u00e1zy Palace in Hungary, the latter perhaps because of his personal sense of isolation due to the cruel onslaught of deafness. Yet in Schubert<\/a><\/strong>, original music for four hands found its greatest champion \u2013 indeed the very first work listed in Otto Erich Deutsch\u2019s groundbreaking catalogue of the Austrian composer\u2019s music is a Fantasy in G for piano duet, composed in 1810, when Schubert was still in his early teens. <\/p> Schubert produced over 30 opuses for piano duet, spanning his entire (if short) creative life. These range from collections of dances, marches and l\u00e4ndler, to overtures, rondos and sets of variations. Yet for sheer scale of vision, two works stand out: the Divertissement \u00e0 la hongroise <\/i>D818, inspired by his pupil, 18-year-old Countess Caroline Esterh\u00e1zy, but dedicated (perhaps to prevent gossip) to the married singer Katharina von L\u00e1szny; and most especially the later Fantasy in F minor D940, dedicated to Countess Caroline, who was by now a more acceptable 22 years of age. The Fantasy, one of Schubert\u2019s most searingly intense creations, is the first bona fide <\/i>masterpiece for piano duet, and remains an unequalled summit of the genre.<\/p> As Romantic music gathered steam \u2013 expressively, temporally, harmonically and sonically \u2013 the relative intimacy of the piano duet struggled to find a natural voice. Neither Schumann<\/a><\/strong>, Mendelssohn<\/a><\/strong>, Chopin<\/a><\/strong> nor Liszt<\/a><\/strong> produced anything of great consequence for four hands. While Nationalism inspired occasional sets of dances and character pieces in Russia, central and Slavic Europe and the Nordic countries (most notably Grieg<\/a><\/strong>), only two works really achieved truly classic status. These were Brahms<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s Hungarian Dances<\/i> and Dvo\u0159\u00e1k<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s Slavonic Dances<\/i>. That said, even these works have only achieved musical immortality in their orchestral guises. <\/p> The flip side to the relative dearth of original music for piano four hands during the mid-19th century was the increasing demand for arrangements of orchestral scores. This was the golden era of educated families embracing the piano as the ideal salon instrument, and it was through the piano that many people got to know the orchestral and chamber repertoires. This is where four hands really came into their own, unravelling the contrapuntal, harmonic and textural complexities of multi-instrumental music with a clarity and precision that often surpassed the originals. <\/p> By the end of the 19th century, solo piano and duet versions of the latest symphonic masterpieces consistently outsold the original scores. Many composers, most notably Brahms, made their own arrangements, while others relied on expert transcribers or pupils. Some arrangements were doggedly literal, others were more impressionistic, employing specifically pianistic devices and rhetoric to help convey the expressive flavour of the originals.<\/p> Yet there was one country whose natural tendency towards the piquant, the subtly alluring and charmingly understated, combined with a sparkling finesse, made it the natural home for the piano duet: France. It was Georges Bizet<\/a><\/strong> who led the way in 1871 with his 12-movement Jeux d\u2019enfants<\/i> (\u2018Children\u2019s Games\u2019 \u2013 he selected five highlights for the popular orchestral suite). As one unforgettable miniature follows another, one can only marvel at the fertility of Bizet\u2019s invention, from the fizzing perpetuum mobile of \u2018<\/i>La toupie\u2019 (The Spinning Top) and light-as-air insouciance of \u2018<\/i>Les bulles de savon\u2019 (Soap Bubbles) to the Schumannesque, fireside warmth of \u2018Petit mari, petite femme\u2019 (Little Husband, Little Wife).<\/p>Who were the first to start playing piano four hands?<\/h2>
Why Romantic composers loved the form<\/h2>
The challenges to four hand piano<\/h2>
When did four hand piano become popular with the public?<\/h2>
How French composers embraced four hand piano<\/h2>