By MARK MORFORD
The Gazette got an advance look at “Two Grands, Eight Hands,” a concert which will be performed by four pianists June 16 at 7.30 p.m. in Buckley Recital Hall at Amherst College.
The performers will be Deborah Gilwood. Eugenie Malek, Estela Olevsky, and Meg Kelsey Wright — all well known in the Pioneer Valley and members of the faculty at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, or Mount Holyoke or Smith colleges. Wright is a co-founder of the Northampton Community Music Center for whose benefit the concert is being given.
All four players will perform the first piece, an arrangement of the overture to Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro,” a joyous start, made more interesting by the soft striking of the pianos’ keys, so different from the mysterious sound of the strings at the beginning of the orchestral version. Mozart will be followed by the French composer, Francis Poulenc, whose Sonata for two pianos, was composed in 1918 after four years of World War I.
Poulenc is above all a witty composer, whose work has been described by the French critic Louis Moyse as “toujours les plaisenteries” (“always full of jokes.”) In fact, this sonata is substantial and too short for the great pleasure that it gives the hearer with its wit, cheerful rhythms, and unexpected harmonies.
From Vienna and Paris, the program moves to Czechoslovakia for three of Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances, two fast ones enclosing a beautiful slow waltz. Dvorak’s music is nostalgic, immensely satisfying but also arousing memories of temps perdu, a past that can never be regained, or of a homeland that can never be visited again. While these pieces are dances, inviting us to leave our seats and dance with them, they also inspire profound feelings of loss and memories of happiness forever gone.
The last pieces before the intermission will be by the contemporary American composer William Bolcom, here in a surprisingly “retro” mood, for these two pieces are more like the gentle jazz of the 1930s than Bolcom’s usual compositions. His theme for the first piece, “Through Eden’s Gates,” is biblical, paradisial and ultimately tragic. Despite the ambiguity of its title, it suggests the happiness and peace of the Garden before the fall. The second piece, “The Serpent’s Kiss,” leaves no doubt about the title’s meaning and its consequences. Milton would have approved.
After the intermission, Rachmaninoff’s Tarantella for two pianos will be played. This dance takes its name from the bite of the tarantula spider, for victims, it was believed, could be healed by performing the dance — if they were not completely exhausted. In 6/8 time the dance is vigorous and apparently endless, leaving players and hearers amazed, in every sense of the word.
From Russia, the program will move to Argentina, Olevsky’s native country and the home of Astor Piazzolla, who died in 1992. His “Milonga del Angel” has all the grace, energy and pathos of Spanish music, with the optimism of a Milonga, an event involving dancing, not so much a single kind of dance.
Finally, “Variations on I Got Rhythm” from the United States. George Gershwin, who was only 39 when he died in 1937, arranged his “I Got Rhythm” for two pianos, and rhythm and excitement is what they have in this memorable piece. The concert ends with an arrangement of Sousa’s “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” played by all four performers. However familiar this iconic piece may be, there are fresh revelations here, when played on two grand pianos, by eight hands.
Admission at the door costs $20; $10 for seniors and students. For information, call 585-0001.