Mendelssohn: Works for Piano Duo Duo Lontano

• Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809–1847): Octet in E-flat major, Op. 20 (For piano four hands)
• 1 I. Allegro moderato ma con fuoco 15:10
• 2 II. Andante 07:01
• 3 III. Scherzo: Allegro leggiero 05:32
• 4 IV. Presto 07:30
• Overture “The Hebrides” in B minor, Op. 26 (For piano four hands)
• 5 The Hebrides in D Major, Op. 26, MWV P7, Fingal's Cave (version for piano duet) 09:39
• Sonata Movement in G Minor (For two pianos)
• 6 Sonata Movement in G Minor, MWV S2 04:01
• Song Without Words in E-flat major, Op. 67, 1 (For piano four hands)
• 7 Lieder ohne Worte (Songs without Words) 03:03
• Total Runtime 51:56

Info for Mendelssohn: Works for Piano Duo

Exciting perceptual shifts await the listener, presented here on the new Genuin CD by the Duo Lontano: Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture, suspended in a reverie, and the youthful-bubbly String Octet, which the composer himself arranged for black and white keys and four hands. The colorful images become transformed into dramatic black-and-white pictures and the structures emerge differently and more contoured than in the original version – particularly in the way the sensitive and excellently matched pianists Babette Hierholzer and Jürgen Appell - the Duo Lontano – embrace the tender romanticism of the works. Highly fascinating insights into the composer’s workshop!

Babette Hierholzer, Piano
Jürgen Appell, Piano

The Duo Lontano
features the pianists Babette Hierholzer and Jürgen Appell and was founded in 2004. The two artists can look back to a successful ten years of concertizing on extended concert tours that led them to Italy, Germany, Venezuela, Mexico, Russia and to the USA and included an invitation to Caracas, Venezuela to perform Mozart’s Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra in E-flat major, KV 365 with the Orquesta Juvenil Simón Bolívar conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. In recent years the Duo Lontano has performed in the United States at the Kaatsbaan International Dance Center in New York State, as well as at the Trailmix Concerts, the Phoenicia International Festival of the Voice and at Maverick Concerts in Woodstock, New York.

Babette Hierholzer first studied with Elisabeth Dounias-Sindermann and Wolfgang Saschowa in Berlin before studying with Paul Badura-Skoda, Herbert Stessin, Lili Kraus, Maria Tipo and Bruno Leonardo Gelber. She is the Artistic Director of the German Forum in New York. Jürgen Appell studied with Elisabeth Dounias-Sindermann and Ingeborg Peu-kert in Berlin.

Booklet for Mendelssohn: Works for Piano Duo