The chief attraction of this release by duo pianists Peter Hill and Benjamin Frith is the large group of excerpts from Tchaikovsky's Fifty Russian Folk Songs, arranged in 1868 and 1869 for piano, four hands. These works were published in 1869 (but not given an opus number), not long after the exploration of folk music in Russia had begun at the hands of Balakirev. None of the 23 songs here is longer than a minute, and many are considerably shorter. The variety is enough to make you want to acquire a recording of the whole ...
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The chief attraction of this release by duo pianists Peter Hill and Benjamin Frith is the large group of excerpts from Tchaikovsky's Fifty Russian Folk Songs, arranged in 1868 and 1869 for piano, four hands. These works were published in 1869 (but not given an opus number), not long after the exploration of folk music in Russia had begun at the hands of Balakirev. None of the 23 songs here is longer than a minute, and many are considerably shorter. The variety is enough to make you want to acquire a recording of the whole set, something not necessarily easy to do. The variety within this extremely circumscribed form is astonishing, and the exploration of the possibilities afforded by the two pianists is masterful. Sample several minutes anywhere between tracks 7 and 29. The two-piano arrangement of Petrushka by Stravinsky himself, presented in its revised 1947 version, is effervescent and makes an excellent vehicle for the perfect coordination of Hill and Frith, and the opening Six Morceaux, Op. 11, of...
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Add this copy of Russian Works for Piano Four Hands: Stravinsky; to cart. $30.04, new condition, Sold by Revaluation Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Exeter, DEVON, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2017 by Delphian Records.