RACHMANINOV
Symphonic Dances
 AND OTHER ROMANTIC MUSIC FOR TWO PIANOS

Bax, Benjamin, Britten, Debussy-Ravel, Lutoslawski & Saint-Saens

$12.95  ~  MS1260

Although the popularity of multiple keyboards predates the popularity of the piano itself (Bach wrote concerti for two and three keyboards) and piano, four hands, was a recognized musical medium already in the eighteenth century, the heyday of two-piano music comes later – essentially from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries.

Among the great piano duos of the past were Rosina and Josef Lhevinne, originally from Moscow but emigrants to the United States in 1919 and active as a duo by the 1930s. Ethel Bartlett and Rae Robertson, originally from Great Britain (London and Scotland) but also migrated to the U.S., are credited with having established the popularity of the piano duo in concert and with having inspired many composers to write for the medium.

This is the lineage inherited by the duo-pianists Joshua Pierce and Dorothy Jonas. As is true of the medium as a whole, their repertoire consists of original works and arrangements, romantic and modern as well as European and American music. In their four hands, the range of the two-piano repertoire, its virtuosity, its sonic possibilities as well as its expressive powers can be well heard and understood.

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2008 marks the 30th year that the duo-piano team of Pierce and Jonas has been performing. Pierce and Jonas have been called "consummate technicians with marvelous articulation" and "crystalline performances…the ultimate in crispness, producing performances that go far beyond documentation." by Fanfare Magazine while the San Francisco Chronicle has praised their "Exceptional ensemble and glitter", New York Newsday has said that "they displayed that sort of emotional and interpretive union that must be second nature to a two piano team," while the Washington Post called them "skilled and idiomatic" and The New York Times described them as "technically ingenious…a hand in glove performance". Turok's Choice (1996) has said of the duo: "No performers have done more to bring 20th-century repertory for two pianos and orchestra to the  listener’s attention than the duo-piano team of Pierce and Jonas." One of the most imaginative and compelling two piano teams around, Pierce and Jonas have been successfully performing and recording the unusual and neglected two-piano repertoire  of  the 19th and 20th centuries since the mid-1980’s.

The duo has appeared with many symphony orchestras world-wide including those of Houston, San Antonio, Mexico City and Luxembourg as well as the Royal Philharmonic, the London Philharmonia, the National Symphony of Polish Radio and Television, (Katowice), Luxembourg Radio Symphony, the Slovak Philharmonic, State Philharmonic of Kosice, Czech Radio Symphony of Prague, the Orchestra da Camera di Roma, the Chicago Sinfonietta, San Antonio Symphony, the Philharmonia Virtuosi of New York and Utah Symphony. Among their many recent performances include concert appearances in San Diego, CA, Tijuana, Baja Mexico, Bratislava, Slovakia and various cities in the Czech Republic, in performances Mozart’s  Two Piano Concerto in E-flat K365. Their American performances  of this work prompted Ken Smith of the New Jersey Star Ledger to write: "Pierce and Jonas work marvelously in their framework, trading the musical material back and forth comfortably without leaving seams in the textures, yet shaping it with a hint of their own personalities in the process". Paul Somers of Classical New Jersey  writes: "Pierce and Jonas play the Mozart Double Concerto with a sense of gallant elegance the piece demands."

The Pierce and Jonas Duo has performed and recorded all the standard repertoire for two pianos and orchestra as well as introduced and recorded many important twentieth century works including Walter Piston’s Concerto for Two Pianos, Benjamin Britten’s Scottish Ballad, Morton Gould’s Dance Variations for Two Pianos and Orchestra, Paul Creston's Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra, Bohuslav Martinu’s Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra,  as well as works by Nicolai Berezowsky, Alexander Tansman, Gian Francisco Malipiero. Their recordings have ranged from the complete two piano works of Mozart (Pro Arte) to John Cage’s Three Dances for Two Prepared Pianos (Wergo), Charles Ives’ Three Pieces in Quartertones, (Sony Classical and PITCH) along with the Concerto for Two Pianos & Orchestra (1993) (MMC) by the late American composer Robert Starer (Pierce/Jonas chosen by the composer to give the European premier/Mischa and Cipa Dichter gave the American premier). In a letter to MMC Records, 12/15/98, the late composer, Robert Starer wrote upon hearing the recording: "I find Joshua Pierce and Dorothy Jonas brilliant technically and highly sensitive and expressive musically. Their interpretation of the second movement of the concerto is truly poetic and they caught the spirit of the third perfectly. There is nothing to complain about the playing of the outer movements either; they have drive and intensity." David Paladino, of the Westfield Times – Leader has recently praised this duo-piano team who have  "set the standard for many pieces including many first time recordings."

On October 19, 1997 Pierce and Jonas gave the world premier performance of  the Concerto for Two Pianos & Orchestra (1996) which was composed for Pierce/Jonas by William Thomas McKinley, with the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Valek in Smetna Hall, Prague.  In 1999, Helicon Recordings released their world premier recording of the 1958 Pulitzer Prize winning Concerto for Two Pianos & Orchestra (1953) [Helicon HE1044] by composer William Quincy Porter. On hearing their recording of Felix Mendelssohn’s E major and A-flat major  two-piano concerti on the Vox-Classique label, Paul Turok of Turok’s Choice  wrote: "This recording shows what stunning results a true two-piano team can achieve in these concertos, as opposed to two pianists merely brought together for the occasion. Brilliant performances…virtuosic and sensitive." 

In 1984, world-renowned Academy Award winning composer, Miklos Rosza, offered to write for the team a work which became the Spellbound Concerto Fantasie for Two Pianos and Orchestra (a work twice as long as the original Spellbound score, including material not used on the original soundtrack).He also wrote for Pierce/Jonas his New England Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra based on music from the films Lydia and Time Out of Mind. The premier performance took place at Salt Lake City and at Snowbird with the Utah Symphony Orchestra ("…polished and sensitive technicians." - Paul Wetzel, Salt Lake City Tribune) and subsequent performances with the Midland-Odessa Symphony ("Dynamically performed with precision and technical excellence." - Skye Osborne Odessa American/Texas. These critically acclaimed performances resulted in the team being invited to give a Command Performance for the Royal Family with the London Philharmonia at the Royal Festival Hall/London. Their 1991 Chicago debut with Paul Freeman and the Chicago Sinfonietta in Francis Poulenc’s Two-Piano Concerto was called "most delightful…a performance of stature" - The Chicago Sun-Times.

Starting in 1992, Mr. Pierce and Ms. Jonas presented a unique and exciting series of performances at CAMI Hall, New York University and at MicroFest Trenton, New Jersey as part of the American Festival of MicroTonal Music performance seasons. They presented first performances of two piano works by Stefen Konicek (Preludium, Blues and Toccata) and Roland Moser’s Homage AO as well as two-piano works by Alan Hohvaness, Mordecai Sandberg, Ivan Wyschnegradsky, Bruce Mather, and Charles Ives of which, Kyle Gann of the Village Voice said: "very satisfying performances of some very difficult music… and imbued with spirit."  Their 1994 release of Two Steinways on Broadway continues to  receive tremendous airplay and great critical acclaim: Fanfare: "Pierce and Jonas play with confidence, flair and style."; Daniel Webster of the Philadelphia Enquirer said: "a heightened sense of poetry".

In 2001, Pierce and Jonas completed a new album of World Premier performances for Kleos Classics, and was released in 2004, titled: Pierce & Jonas Play Rare Works for Two Pianos and Orchestra. Along with the North American Square Dance Suite for Two Pianos and Orchestra by Arthur Benjamin and the Concerto Italienne for Two Pianos and Orchestra by Pierre Max Dubois, they recorded the Two Piano Concerto (1946) by Roy Harris, the latter an obscure yet extremely important work in this genre by one of America’s most important composers of the 20th century.