You should try this at home, should have been the sales pitch in 1845 when Ignaz Moscheles published Grande Sonate Symphonique No. 2 in B minor and, almost 20 years later, Ferdinand Hiller wrote his Operette ohne Text. Both were standalone piano works for four hands aimed at the recently unlocked sonic vistas enabled by an Erard grand, or for whatever lesser instrument you might have in your parlour.
This symphony without an orchestra and wordless, voiceless opera feature on the latest album of eminent Sydney piano duo Stephanie McCallum and Erin Helyard who take to the stage for the third in their Four Hands series on the Toccata label, and a magnificent show they put on. The duo, who formed in 2014 to explore the repertoire using historic instruments, give a premiere recording of Hiller’s Operette and the first on a period piano of Moscheles’ work. They perform on an 1853 Erard with McCallum as primo.
Hiller’s work comprises all the things you’d expect from a short opera – overture, arias, a duet, drinking song with chorus, march and dance. So smooth and compatible are the duo –they breathe as one – that it is hard to pick who is playing what and when, and the action just rips along.
The Moscheles is a grander affair, but no less enjoyable. There is a recording on modern piano by Swiss-Hungarian Duo Soós-Haag, but this HIP performance is more intimate, more urgent and has all the romantic grandeur of that version.
Title: Four Hands on Stage
Works: Works by Hiller & Moscheles
Performers: Stephanie McCallum, Erin Helyard p
Label: TOCATTA TOCN0042
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