The enjoyment of listening to classical piano pieces is more than doubled when there are two pianists at the keyboard, writes Ma Dan
Dutch Pianists Leo van Doeselaar and his wife Wyneke Jordans are two of the best-known Dutch musicians in Europe today. They are on their way to Shanghai to present the city's music lovers an unusual concert - the program consists entirely of pieces written for two pianos and works for one piano and four hands.
Doeselaar and Jordans first performed as a piano duo at the Amsterdam Sweelinck Conservatory in 1981. It was their graduation recital and they had graduated from the conservatory with a special award for their playing of piano duets.
Now they're an established international concert duo and they have appeared in concerts with orchestras and given recitals throughout Europe and the United States.
Hearing a piano duo is a lot different from listening to a solo pianist. The spectrum of sound is much broader and the performance is more interesting to watch.
"Sometimes it is like living in a too small room or sleeping in a too narrow bed because you have to share the pedal and can't sit straight before the keyboard. Sometimes your hands or fingers are knotting," says Doeselaar. "However, it became still more and more interesting for us to show the public the many beautiful four-hand pieces, composed by so many great European composers."
He adds that they especially prefer to play the repertoire for one piano and four hands. During their 25 years together as a piano duo, the couple searched European libraries and second-hand music bookshops and found many beautiful and interesting piano transcriptions.
In the Shanghai debut, they will perform two transcription pieces for piano and four hands - Johann Sebastian Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565" and Camille Saint-Saens' "Carnival des Animaux."
"As we know that Chinese music has a big tradition in imitating sounds from nature, we thought it interesting to play this piece of music ('Carnival des Animaux') in the transcription we found in a very small old music-shop in Paris," says the husband.
The second part of the concert will present masterpieces by Francis Poulenc and Maurice Ravel.
"Ravel was a great admirer of China and Chinese art and his piano used to be full of 'chinoiseries'," says Doeselaar.

Date: October 27, 7:30pm
Venue: Shanghai Concert Hall, 523 Yan'an Rd E.
Tickets: 100-380 yuan
Tel: 6217-2426, 6217-3055