Spina-Benignetti Piano Duo: Schubert: Music for Piano Four Hands
Ulysses Arts

Spina-Benignetti Piano Duo: Visions
Sheva Collection

Precision of execution is, of course, critical to a successful piano four hands performance, but musicality is as imperative. To that end, Eleonora Spina and Michele Benignetti show themselves to be exemplars of the form on their latest releases, the most recent an all-Schubert programme and its predecessor a wider-ranging affair featuring works by Mussorgsky, Rachmaninoff, Poulenc, and Franck. Having formalized their partnership in 2013 and performed throughout the globe—Japan, Australia, China, and South Africa among the locales—as a chamber outfit and as soloists with orchestras, the two have acquired the kind of telepathic connection to which all piano duos aspire. Playing more than fifty concerts in six months, as they did in 2019, will do that.

Spina and Benignetti have been recognized with numerous awards, including the ‘Diplôme Supérieur d'Exécution' at the Ecole Normale De Musique Alfred Cortot in Paris, and are currently professors at the Cité de la Musique et de la Danse in Soissons, France. After a well-received recording in 2015 of Brahms's complete works for two pianos, they followed it two years later with Lifetime before 2021's Visions. Recorded at the Auditorium Cité de la Musique et de la Danse in Soissons in February 2022, Schubert: Music for Piano Four Hands features works originally written for piano four hands and a transcription by Hugo Ulrich of the “Trout” Piano Quintet for piano four hands. At eighty-one minutes, the digital release offers a generous account of the composer's music.

Composed in 1819 and published the year after the composer's death, the “Trout” Piano Quintet derives its title from a theme in its fourth movement, specifically a simplified treatment of the song “Die Forelle” Schubert wrote two years before. In the quintet's original form, the piano engages conversationally with the strings, an idea Ulrich naturally retained for the four-hands treatment. The work advances through five movements, its forty-three-minute running time intimating the breadth of ground explored. The epic “Allegro vivace” that initiates the journey is characterized by continuous flow and melodic lyricism, qualities the virtuosic duo capture in their sterling interpretation. Even more lyrical is the “Andante,” which unspools at a slower tempo and consequently enables the dialogue-like dimension of the transcription to be appreciated all the more. Spina and Benignetti imbue the high-energy “Scherzo (Presto)” with all the animation it demands and then amplify the singing quality of “Andantino - Allegretto” with a delicate voicing of its theme plus variations that are floridly embroidered and exuberantly delivered. Breathlessly capping the work with a series of micro-movements, the ten-minute “Allegro giusto” receives a towering reading.

While they're admittedly overshadowed by the quintet, the other pieces, both single-movement works lasting nearly twenty minutes apiece, are certainly as deserving of attention. Written in 1824, Eight Variations in A-flat Major on an Original Theme, D. 813 reveals the fecundity of Schubert's imagination in how inventively variations are spun from its march theme. Arriving four years later, the Fantasia in F Minor, D. 940 was published after his death in 1829. Composed in a free sonata form, the work progresses through four interconnected movements. After a lyrical and rather solemn intro, the second movement appears, its onset signified by a dramatic declamatory statement before a softer lyrical theme arises. The music subsequently alternates between loud and soft passages until the scherzo, its brighter and livelier mood clearly announcing its onset and the pianists interlocking splendidly. After revisiting the work's initial theme, the finale swells majestically to a climax until a restatement of the theme brings the work to a chords-directed resolution.

As strong a testament to the duo's artistry is Visions, which begins with two movements from a work Mussorgsky wrote in his early twenties, the Sonata for Piano Four Hands in C major. Written as a student exercise in composition in 1860 and his only attempt at composing a sonata, the piece moves from an emphatic “Allegro Assai” crowned with a stately theme to a “Scherzo” that's endearingly bright and nimble-footed. However minor the work might seem when compared to better-known ones such as Boris Godunov and Pictures at an Exhibition, the sonata nevertheless boasts a melodic character that marks it as Mussorgsky's. Composed in 1894, Rachmaninoff's Six Morceaux, Op. 11 begins with the gentle sway of a brooding “Barcarolle” that gradually blossoms into a sparkling set-piece teeming with rapid figurations. The “Scherzo” drives relentlessly from its first breath, though passages also emerge where the music slows before accelerating again. “Russian Theme,” on the other hand, begins at a stately hush with the voicing of a folk theme that's subjected to elaborate variations of daunting complexity. The work turns playful for the sprightly “Waltz,” wistful for the lyrical “Romance,” and expressively regal for the dynamic “Slava.”

Moving into the recording's second half, Poulenc's three-part Sonata for Piano Four Hands, completed in June 1918, reflects the influence of Stravinsky (whose intervention led to its publication) and others. A tribal rhythm animates the “Prélude,” whose folkloric melodic gestures call Bartók and Prokofiev to mind. As melodically enticing is the slightly calmer “Rustique,” which gives way to the high-velocity declamations of the locomotive “Final.” Composed in 1862, Franck's Prelude, Fugue and Variation,Op. 18 is presented in a version for piano four hands created in 1903 by Abel Marie Decaux and is, in fact, the worldwide premiere and first recording of the piece in this form. Originally one of six organ pieces Franck completed between 1859 and 1862, the third, dedicated to Saint-Saëns, unfolds in a single movement, the twelve-minute piece opening pensively with a solemn prelude and graceful, Bach-like voicings. The fugue section perpetuates the probing tone of the intro with declarative polyphonic patterns until the concluding part returns to the haunting opening section but now with more florid accompaniment.

If the Schubert set plays like an intensive examination of one composer's works, Visions comes across as a probing travelogue that explores representative samples of four artists' work. Both recordings impress on performance grounds and are worthy of recommendation; both likewise testify to the excellence of the duo's playing and musicality, making Spina & Benignetti Piano Duo an act one should definitely catch whenever the opportunity arises. It'll also be interesting to see who the two turn their attention to on their next recording project.

April 2023