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Parnassus Piano Duo 24th February: Introducing Percy Sherwood

Spring is coming and with it the choice of concerts seems to expand! Prompted by the ever-useful Music in Durham website, for the first time I attended a Durham University Music Society concert and my first experience of a piano duo (2 people, 2 pianos rather than a duet which is 1 piano). Quite a reasonable gathering for a Monday evening in the Concert Room in the Music Department on Palace Green.
 
The Parnassus Piano Duo, Simon Callaghan and Hiro Takenouchi, make an understated but excellent duo, who treated the audience to a programme of the following:
 
 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-91): Larghetto & Allegro in E flat [1781]
 Percy Sherwood (1866-1939): Sonata for Two Pianos in C minor [1890 rev. 96]
 Aaron Copland (1900-1990): El Salón México (arr. Leonard Bernstein) [1932-6]
 Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943): Suite No.2 Op.17
 
Closing my eyes during the Mozart, I could almost imagine an evening soiree in a Viennese salon...
 
Percy Sherwood makes very rare appearances on the concert stage. From Takenouchi's brief introduction, it seems highly probable that the Parnassus two premiered the Sonata for Two Pianos this year (indeed, by their counting last night's concert marked the 2nd performance of this piece, at least in the UK). Drawing on influences including Schubert, Brahms and R Strauss (plus perhaps pianist-composers of monumental works such as Medtner or Alkan), the 4 movement work was immense in size and sound - imagine a combination of the aforenamed composers multiplied many many times. A big, bold edge-of-the-seat work with a definite demented undertone of the macabre. I particularly enjoyed the middle movements, adagio and scherzo: allegro molto: a delicate but also large adagio  and an insistent journey along the edge in the scherzo; also the insistent echo of doom in the final movement journey through hope and despair. I wonder if Marc-André Hamelin knows this work...
 
After a short pause, the concert continued with Bernstein's arrangement of El Salón México. The 2 pianos arrangement was really really fun to hear (and presumably to play), with certain sections reminiscent of steel drums and a final jumpy discordant chord.
To finish off the evening, Callaghan and Tanenouchi performed Rachmaninov's Suite No 2 Op 17, which was indeed a real treat. The first movement was almost proto-jazz and fitted very well with the preceding Copland; the third movement, romance: andantino was truly fantastic.
 
All in all a wonderful evening!
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