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Russian Works for Piano Four Hands

Stravinsky; Rachmaninov; Tchaikovsky

Peter Hill & Benjamin Frith (piano)

Awards:

Frith and Hill balance the virtuosity with explosive melodies…both have the necessary dexterity to chase notes and fingers – the overlapping twists and turns of ‘Slava’ demand a balletic performance…The...

Russian Works for Piano Four Hands

Stravinsky; Rachmaninov; Tchaikovsky

Peter Hill & Benjamin Frith (piano)

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Awards:

Frith and Hill balance the virtuosity with explosive melodies…both have the necessary dexterity to chase notes and fingers – the overlapping twists and turns of ‘Slava’ demand a balletic performance…The...

About

Sergei Rachmaninov, last of the great Romantic composers, and Igor Stravinsky, whose early scores for Diaghilev and the Ballet Russes revolutionised the musical world, had a shared fascination for the traditional music of their homeland. Rachmaninov’s early masterpiece, the Six morceaux Op. 11, already exhibits the sweep and grandeur of his maturity, while Stravinsky’s four-hands arrangement of Petrushka reveals this glittering ballet anew in a tour de force of pianistic virtuosity. Tchaikovsky’s hauntingly exquisite transcriptions of Russian folksongs, meanwhile, include two melodies later used by Stravinsky in The Firebird and Petrushka.

Peter Hill, whose Bach series for Delphian continues to attract superlatives, is here joined for the first time on the label by his long-term duo partner Benjamin Frith. Together they explore every facet of the art of the piano duet in performances of truly exceptional power, delicacy and authority.

Contents and tracklist

No. 1, Barcarolle
Track length5:14
No. 2, Scherzo
Track length2:54
No. 3, Thème russe
Track length3:50
No. 4, Valse
Track length3:55
No. 5, Romance
Track length3:13
No. 6, Glory
Track length4:25
No. 5, Do Not Overflow, My Quiet Danube
Track length0:40
No. 24, Are You My Plait, My Scarf?
Track length0:51
No. 41, Is It Really You, Dove-Grey Rooster?
Track length0:28
No. 26, But We Have Rented the Land
Track length0:23
No. 47, Vanya Was Sitting
Track length0:29
No. 20, I Shall Approach and Come up to Your Town
Track length0:24
No. 16, Do Not Sing, Do Not Sing, O Little Nightingale
Track length0:35
No. 36, Oh, Meadow-Duck of Mine
Track length0:16
No. 48, By the Gates, the Gates
Track length0:23
No. 3, Remember, Remember, My Dear
Track length0:40
No. 8, By the Gate the Pine Tree Rocks
Track length0:36
No. 42, Under the Green Apple Tree
Track length0:18
No. 6, Spin, O My Spinner
Track length0:41
No. 22, As down the Hill, down the Mountain
Track length0:42
No. 45, Snowball Tree with Raspberries
Track length0:33
No. 4, The Loach Wriggles on the Water
Track length0:31
No. 19, Yesterday Evening I Was Young at the Feast
Track length0:25
No. 35, Oh, My Heart, My Poor Thing
Track length0:35
No. 23, In the Sea the Duck Was Swimming
Track length0:30
No. 34, Merry Katenka
Track length0:26
No. 46, As Across the Meadow, Across the Little Meadow
Track length0:33
No. 25, Beyond the Yard the Little Meadow Is Green
Track length0:21
No. 49, Yo, Heave Ho (Song of the Volga Boatmen)
Track length0:58
Scene 1: The Shrovetide Fair
Track length4:55
Scene 1: The Magic Trick
Track length1:53
Scene 1: Russian Dance
Track length2:31
Scene 2: Petrushka's Cell
Track length3:51
Scene 3: The Moor's Cell
Track length2:32
Scene 3: Dance of the Ballerina
Track length0:42
Scene 3: Waltz [The Ballerina and the Moor]
Track length3:03
Scene 4: The Shrovetide Fair [Evening]
Track length1:08
Scene 4: Dance of the Wet-Nurses
Track length2:31
Scene 4: Enter a Peasant with a Bear
Track length1:29
Scene 4: The Gypsy Women Dance
Track length0:55
Scene 4: Dance of the Coachmen and the Grooms
Track length1:58
Scene 4: The Masquerders
Track length2:05
Scene 4: Death of Petrushka
Track length2:44

Awards and reviews

  • Presto Editor's Choice
    September 2017

November 2017

Frith and Hill balance the virtuosity with explosive melodies…both have the necessary dexterity to chase notes and fingers – the overlapping twists and turns of ‘Slava’ demand a balletic performance…The twosome perform with variety, sensitivity – and just enough theatrics.

Awards Issue 2017

This is an altogether impressive, accomplished and rewarding release, a delight to listen to from both the sound and performance points of view…Hill and Frith have been playing as a duo since 1986. Such complete lending of tone, touch, dynamics and phrasing quite conceals any division of labour: a clear case of two right hands knowing exactly what the two left ones are doing.

March 2018

Hill and Frith brings to this programme a great range of colours and expression and a strong partnership. They can be meltingly romantic in Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky when called for, also angular and ironic and witty. But they excel in the Stravinsky: their clarity and precision displays the score with an analytic grasp of detail and their rhythmic zest makes for a most exciting performance

24th September 2017

This succession of three items has both musical and academic interest.
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