Viney-Grinberg Duo

We open this program of mostly French and Australian music with a birthday tribute to a Hungarian composer. György Kurtág turns one hundred this year, and these miniatures from Játékok (‘Games’) feel apt for a piano duo concert. Deceptively small in scale, they are large in wit and meaning. Flowers we are… (embracing sounds) asks two pianists to lean into one another, arms overlapping, sound pooling across the keyboard: an embrace made audible. Quarrelling is exactly what it sounds like: two voices jostling for position, each insisting on its own territory as the keyboard’s ‘real estate’ becomes fiercely contested. And in Hommage à Paganini, one pianist is unceremoniously banished to a second instrument altogether. We put these three pieces together deliberately, to sketch a little portrait of duo life: closeness, conflict, and the occasional need for separate rooms.

After relations are restored, Cécile Chaminade’s Six Pièces romantiques, Op. 55 follow. This is salon music of great charm and craft, long underestimated and increasingly restored to its rightful place in the repertoire. Francis Poulenc’s Sonata for Piano Four Hands is irreverent and irresistible, shot through with his characteristic mix of acerbic wit and occasional tenderness. Carl Vine’s Piano Sonata No. 1 brings an Australian voice to the program: rhythmically driven, and uncompromising in its demands. Peter Sculthorpe’s Left Bank Waltz  closes the program with characteristic warmth, a piece that glances towards Paris while remaining unmistakably Australian.

Program

Selections from Játékok by György Kurtág

6 Pièces romantiques, Op.55 by Cécile Chaminade

Sonata for Piano 4 Hands by Francis Poulenc

Sonata for Piano by Carl Vine

Left Bank Waltz by Peter Sculthorpe

Viney-Grinberg Duo

Liam Viney and Anna Grinberg enjoy an international performance profile as a piano duo, involving festivals, major series, live radio broadcasts, orchestras, and CD releases on Naxos, ABC Classics and Tall Poppies. Viney–Grinberg’s innovative and creative approach has resulted in collaborations with composers, artists, dancers, choreographers and other established performing ensembles.