Klavierduo Stenzl: Grand-Mondain
GENUIN classics

Building on the natural connection shared by siblings, the Stenzl brothers, Hans-Peter and Volker, have performed and recorded together for more than thirty years and have justly earned the “grand seigneurs of piano duos” label sometimes affixed. The synergy of their union on Grand-Mondain truly does make it seem as if we're hearing a single entity with four hands as opposed to two with two. The four composers featured on Klavierduo Stenzl's “European journey” aren't connected by nationality but more anniversaries, the100th of Erik Satie's and Moritz Moszkowski's deaths, the fiftieth of Dmitri Shostakovich's, and the 150th birthday of Maurice Ravel. Of course any recording that includes selections from the latter's enchanting Ma mère l'Oye is already worth hearing, but the pieces by the others, Satie's La belle excentrique suite, two dance pieces by Shostakovich, and the six-part Aus aller Herren Ländern by the less well-known Moszkowski, all have much to recommend them, especially when delivered so winningly by the German duo.

Recorded at Munich's Studio 2 in January 2024, Grand-Mondain starts its voyage in France, even if the content in the opening piece looks beyond its borders. Originally created for a small orchestra, dancer, and a speaker voicing now-missing texts by Jean Cocteau, Satie's La belle excentrique (1920) treats musical elements from different cultures with affection, wit, and originality as they're refracted through the French composer's idiosyncratic prism. Like a gleeful strut down the promenade, the “Grande Ritournelle” initiates the suite with two minutes of cheeky irreverence, its tone already suggesting the recording won't be lugubrious. As arresting is “Marche Franco-Lunaire,” which couples radiant fluidity with expressions of austere delicacy; it might be oddly titled, but the as-contrasting “Valse du „Mystérieux baiser dans l'œil” has musical charm to spare, while “Cancan Grand-Mondain” reinstates the rousing revelry of the opening part.

While admittedly nothing tops Ravel's orchestrated version of Ma mère l'Oye, the piano treatment doesn't suffer when it retains the magical essence of the piece and its melodic allure. Without sacrificing its sense of mystery, the duo's rendering of “Pavane de la Belle au bois dormant” exudes gentleness, as does the entrancing treatment of “Petit Poucet” with its evocation of Tom Thumb wandering in the forest and its piano sprinkles suggesting bird trills. “Laideronnette. Impératrice des pagodes” sparkles iridescently when not ponderously brooding. The brothers' sensitive touch suits the material splendidly, and their smoothly calibrated adjustments in tempo and dynamics during “Les entretiens de la Belle et de la Bête” speak to that artistry. And of course the majestic beauty of “Le jardin féerique,” whether it's in a piano or orchestral for, never fails to dazzle, especially when its gradual build is effected with as much care as the Stenzls bring to it.

Shostakovich's represented by two short dances, “Polka” (from1951's Ballet-Suite Nr. 2) and “Walzer” (1954's Musik zum Film „Einheit“), material that's sunny and infectious and worlds removed from the harrowing tone of the composer's fifth and seventh symphonies. In 1897, Moszkowski followed his large-scale suite From All Over the World with an appealing instrumental treatment, which was in the repertoire of many a European orchestra up to the start of the twentieth century. But after the composer moved from Berlin to Paris in 1897, his star dimmed, and he died in 1925 impoverished, lonely, and his work seemingly doomed to oblivion. Credit the Stenzls, then, for helping to cast a fresh light on the composer and this splendid six-part jaunt through six countries. The lightness of the other composers' works emerges here too, with “Russland" characterized by exuberance and a carefree spirit. Whereas a regal cantabile quality informs the lovely “Deutschland,” “Spanien” is proud and passionate. On an album where pieces are generally two to three minutes at a time, “Polen” stands apart for being eight—perhaps the longer length explained by the fact that its focus is Moszkowski's homeland. As the journey nears its end, it's buoyed by a lively tarantella (“Italien”) and a fiery stop in Hungary (“Ungarn”).

Like a multi-scenic, action-packed European tour, the piano duo squeezes a lot of material into the recording's fifty-two minutes, simply one more thing of many that recommends Grand-Mondain. It's the synchronicity of the playing and the sensitivity with which the music's moods are articulated that recommend the release most, however, and it's a genuine pleasure to spend time in the brothers' engaging company.

March 2025