Program

Mozart:	Fugue in C Minor, K. 426
Reger:	Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Beethoven, Op. 86
Busoni:	Fantasia Contrappuntistica
Mozart:	Sonata in D Major for Two Pianos, K. 448

Performers

András Schiff, piano Peter Serkin, piano

Madison was one of only three cities to hear a two-piano program by outstanding artists András Schiff and Peter Serkin. Their program at the Union Theater Friday evening was a major adventure musically and pianistically.

I was worried, during the opening Mozart Fugue in C Minor, K. 426, that the playing would be too insistent upon calling out the fugue subject at each occurrence, for the following work, Reger's Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Beethoven, Op. 86, would surely suffer from such a treatment, and even more so would a much better piece, Busoni's Fantasia Contrappuntistica, conceived as a completion of Bach's Art of the Fugue. But the Busoni was very beautifully played indeed. It's a pity one hears it so seldom.

The last piece was pure heaven: Mozart's well-known but always exciting Sonata in D Major for Two Pianos, K. 448. Not only the slow movement, but the outer movements as well left not a thing to be desired. And of course, the work is great fun. Curiously, the house was not full; too bad, because it was an absolutely wonderful concert.

Isthmus, October, 1997
Copyright 1997 Jess Anderson