Tal & Groethuysen

Schubert: Complete Piano Music for Four Hands / Sony Classical Masters Tal & Groethuysen

More great piano music, Schubert's music for four hands, which has been singled out by experts as his most original contribution to the keyboard repertoire. In works like the Grand Duo and F minor Fantasy, Schubert took a popular form of domestic music-making, already ennobled by Mozart, and turned it into a genre of concert-hall stature. Today's foremost interpreter of these marvellous pieces is the Israeli-German piano duo of Yaara Tal and Andreas Groethuysen. Sony Classical is now, for the first time, releasing all of their Schubert recordings, made in 1993-95 at Grafenegg Castle in Austria, in a 7-CD box. Gramophone's reviewer wrote that it is "a joy" to hear this repertoire "done by great musicians and I can't think of any duo partnership currently before the public that surpasses this one." The critic also singled out the exceptionally clear and firm sound of the instrument, a large Fazioli Model 308 piano which the artists consider necessary to re-create the "symphonic ambitions" and dynamic range of this splendid music.