Pianists Artur Pizarro and Rinaldo Zhok met through Odradek Records, with whom both have performed separately as soloists, and together in a recording of music by Dvorak greeted by Gramophone Magazine as: "An absorbing and entertaining disc let's hope these two have more in store for us." With this album they resume their partnership to perform the complete Beethoven works for piano four hands, including the world-premiere recording of the four hands version of Beethoven's Quintet for Piano and Winds, Op. 16.
Beethoven's music for piano four hands displays different facets of the composer's skill with colour and form. The famous 'Grosse Fuge', Op. 134, originally for string quartet, is a monument to the art of transcription: Beethoven not only transcribes but reinvents this work, with stunning results. The same may be said of the piano four hands version of the Quintet for Piano and Winds, which Beethoven recasts as a truly impressive sonata. 'The Three Marches', Op. 45 influenced Schubert's 'Three Military Marches' and show Beethoven in a softer and more intimate light. The album also features the 'Eight Variations on a theme by Count Waldstein, WoO 67', in which Beethoven varies an elegant melody by the friend and patron whose name would be immortalised in his Piano Sonata, Op. 53. The 'Six Variations on 'Ich denke dein', WoO 74' draw inspiration from a literary source: Goethe's poem 'Nhe des Geliebten' 'The Nearness of the Beloved'.
Artur Pizarro has recorded a series of highly-acclaimed albums with Odradek, including the complete Rachmaninov piano music and, most recently, 'Lebensreise', a disc of music by Robert Schumann, for which Pizarro's playing has been praised as: "soft as velvet, but muscular and virtuoso if necessary technique and virtuosity are unconditionally at the service of the composer's intentions." (Klassiek Centraal). Pizarro also performed the Poulenc Piano Concerto with the Beethoven Philharmonie and Thomas Rosner on the album Couleurs, praised in Gramophone Magazine: "Pizarro seems delighted to meet the score on its own terms, turning in a performance of considerable sensitivity and subtlety."
Rinaldo Zhok's Odradek releases include an album of music by Jesus Garcia Leoz, and a widely celebrated disc of Liszt's Verdi transcriptions: " breathes quality in every department with technical command to spare Zhok excels" (BBC Music Magazine); "The Italian elicits from the piano beautiful singing tones, shaping every phrase of every piece with care and communicating with unfailing intensity" (The Sunday Times).
