Stephanie and Erin will perform two previously neglected works by leading musical figures on an original Parisian Erard grand piano from 1853, (restored in 2017 by Frits Janmaat in Amsterdam). The early nineteenth century Erard pianos’ qualities were essential to the development of creating large orchestral sound textures on the piano alone. Uncanny examples of this were the astonishing solo piano Symphony Op.39 Nos. 4-7, solo piano Concerto Op.39 Nos.8-10 and solo Overture Op.39 No.11(1857) by Charles Valentin Alkan (1813-1888). Their significance is only now being understood and widely appreciated in recent decades. Moscheles knew of Alkan and attended early recitals of the younger musician in Paris. These ‘orchestral’ works, specifically composed, not as transcriptions, but for piano alone, were likely the result of shared and emerging artistic preoccupations with the new capabilities of the Erard instrument, inspiring Moscheles’ Grand Symphonic Sonata. Here Moscheles displays orchestral sound through the medium of four hands rather than a soloist on piano, taking advantage of the clarity across the full range created by the straight stringing of these instruments. Later, pianos moved to what we know today - strings which crossed over each other, changing the sound to a more blended and homogenised quality.

This epic work introduces Lutheran hymn, Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, in the fourth and final movement. Predecessors using this hymn include Mendelssohn in the final movement of Symphony No.5 Reformation, Op. 107 (1830), Meyerbeer in his five-act grand opera Les Huguenots (1836) and later, Alkan’s Impromptu on a Lutheran hymn for pedal piano Op. 69 (1866).

Stephanie and Erin pair this serious work with the light-hearted comedy of Hiller’s Operetta without Text for four hands piano Op.106 which brings to life the Rossini-style operetta genre in twelve detailed sections from Overture to solos and choruses, evoking cantilena vocal, as well as orchestral, sound.

Translating vocal genres to the improved legato qualities of the French Erard piano, became popular after the initial success of Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words (1829-1845).  Alkan followed these with five books of Chants (Songs) (1857-1872), including the hymns, hunting songs, drinking songs, duets and choruses, of popular vocal genres. As close confidant and correspondent of Alkan, Ferdinand Hiller (dedicatee of Alkan’s Trois Marches for four hands Op.40) shared his interest in four hands piano work and in vocal and orchestral characterisations on the piano. His full Operetta for piano four hands is unique- a detailed and amusing evocation of this genre displaying the full colour possibilities of this wonderful instrument.