Counterpoint

One of the greatest pianists of his time, Ferruccio Busoni was also a composer with a highly individual style, as well as one of the most open-minded musical thinkers of the early 20th century.  He also made numerous arrangements of works by Bach, Mozart and Liszt, among others.  The present Duettino concertante is a free transcription of the finale from Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 19 (K. 459).  One might think that he simply arranged the orchestral accompaniment for a second piano, but his procedure was more complex than that.  He had both pianists take turns in playing the solo part, and used both of them in the orchestral tutti where the piano was silent in the original Mozart piece.  At the moment where the soloist played a cadenza in the Mozart concerto, Busoni (who also published two cadenzas for the piece) briefly spoke in his own voice.  Yet far from clashing, the two voices blend seamlessly with one another.

© 2026 Peter Laki

In a way, this concerto is like a glittering cocktail party where the great luminaries of music history rub elbows and clink their champagne glasses.  And in fact, the inspiration–and the commission–came from the great parties Poulenc attended at the residence of the Princesse de Polignac, one of greatest patrons of new music of her time.  (She was born in Yonkers, New York, as Winnaretta Singer, heiress to the Singer sewing machine fortune.)

One of the guests of honor at this imaginary cocktail party is certainly Mozart:  a “modernized” passage from the latter’s D minor piano concerto appears early in the first movement, and the second movement includes an extended visit to Mozartland.  Next to Mozart, we glimpse Maurice Ravel, whom Poulenc of course knew in person and whose piano concerto in G, brand new in 1932, was a direct influence.  The great singer-songwriters of the Parisian cabarets and music halls were also invited to the party.  Yet Poulenc, like a good master of ceremonies, always remained firmly in control.

Poulenc had originally written this work for two pianos and orchestra, but he also made a transcription for two pianos alone.

© 2026 Peter Laki

Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun was the work that established Debussy at the forefront of French composers in the 1890s.  The ten-minute orchestra piece was inspired by the poem Afternoon of a Faun by Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898), a great innovator in French poetry, who captured that elusive line between dream and awakening that most of us, who are not poets, are well aware of but are unable to put into words.

The faun’s instrument is the flute (panpipe), and thus, Debussy’s work featured the flute prominently, although the first clarinet and the first oboe temporarily took over the lead.  Thus, timbre (instrumental color) is one of the most important factors that make this landmark work what it is.  It is a special challenge, therefore, to transcribe it for piano, where this crucial ingredient is lost.  Debussy himself was the first to attempt the impossible and prepare a version for two pianos in 1895.  His younger contemporary and rival, Maurice Ravel, followed suit with a new arrangement, for two pianists at the same piano.  Here, what was lost in color is made up by the intimacy of the setting and by Ravel’s ability to translate the orchestral material into a perfectly pianistic idiom.  One almost has the feeling that the piece was written for the piano to begin with.

© 2026 Peter Laki

The beloved Clair de lune (“Moonlight”), written two years before the Faun, represents a Debussy who was still rather close to his Romantic predecessors.  Here, the original work was already for piano and, as many students know, it is relatively easier to play than are many of Debussy’s later pieces.  So what was the point of transcribing it for two pianos instead of one?

Henri Dutilleux was one of the most important French composers in the second half of the 20th century.  His adaptation amplifies the gentle sonorities of the original.  If Ravel made Debussy sound more pianistic in his Faun arrangement, Dutilleux’s two-piano Clair de lune is almost like an orchestration.

© 2026 Peter Laki

The two-piano arrangement of La valse is yet another case:  here, there can be no question of making an orchestral piece sound more intimate.  It is, rather, a virtuoso tour de force to make 20 fingers do justice to what originally required almost 100 people.  La valse is, in a way, nothing less than a deconstruction of the waltz, symbolizing the demise of the old Europe as a result of World War I.

Ravel had the following paragraph printed in the score:

“At first the scene is dimmed by a kind of swirling mist, through which one discerns, vaguely and intermittently, the waltzing couples.  Little by little the vapors disperse, the illumination grows brighter, revealing an immense ballroom filled with dancers; the blaze of the chandeliers comes to full splendor.  An Imperial court around 1855.”

Then, however, the sky begins to darken, and the waltz strains are stirred up to a state of hysteria.  The tempo accelerates, the dissonances become harsher and harsher.  The penultimate measure contains four quarter-notes instead of three–that’s how far we’ve gotten from the original idea of the waltz.  As one commentator put it: “Three-quarter time…had become a casualty, too.”

© 2026 Peter Laki

Argentine musical legend Astor Piazzolla brought the tango into the symphonic concert hall.  A virtuoso on the bandoneon (Argentine accordion) who had studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, one of the greatest composition teachers in the 20th century, he bridged musical worlds like no one else could.

Piazzolla recorded these three tangos, in their original form for bandoneon and orchestra, with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s under fellow Argentine Lalo Schifrin.  They form a kind of three-movement quasi-concerto in a fast-slow-fast sequence:   Allegro tranquillo–Moderato místico–Allegro molto marcato.   What could be more fitting at the end of a concert that has covered so much musical territory, than for the two pianists to dance a tango before saying good night?

© 2026 Peter Laki