There is no need to prepare any pieces prior to the meeting, and the pieces here are not learned by each hand separately. It is not a teacher to student format, but the sharing of art among students. In this club we will be sight reading piano arrangements of different kinds of music, from symphonies to chamber music, from Bach to Shostakovich.
The ability to sight read is an essential skill for a musician that holds great value. Sight reading improves you reaction – the physical one, as well as reaction in the musical aspect, and improves the feeling of the style and phrasing and teaches to hold the tempo and rhythm, feel the rhythmic pulsation without dragging or rushingю Collaborative sight reading holds both partners in musical shape, and requires them to be in the musical flow at every moment when they play together.
Sight reading piano four hands repertoire is one of the great pleasures of professional musicians.
Needless to say, that pianists are spoiled by the written repertoire. Music literature for piano is one of the richest and beautiful among the music literatures of solo instruments. But amount of literature written for quartets and symphonies is no less. For a lot of pianists this literature either remains unknown or in the “passive listening” mode. Thanks to piano four hands arrangements, symphonies, quartets, quintets of the golden period of music can be played by pianists. And any musician knows that the best way to become familiar with a musical piece is playing it, and not just listening. No wonder that during almost the entire 19th century music publishing houses would sell the score of symphonies along with the piano four hands arrangements.
The club is going to meet every day for five days of August. Symphonies, quartets by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms and many other treasures of chamber and symphonic music are waiting for us, and musician pairs will be picked based on preferences and level of playing. The head of the club will be happy to keep company during sight reading for the first couple of days, just so the unusual experience doesn’t scare away the newcomers. And as time goes by, the head of the club will just share ideas and help students adapt to the unusual reality of music not being learned slowly and prior to the meetings but comprehended as a whole.
On the last day of the club is expected a open party where students will be challenged to show off their skills in the game of elimination.
Any pianist from the age of twelve that wants to try themselves out in the art playing piano four hands can join the club. Each candidate will need to pass a small “audition” which will determine their playing level and skills and will help pick the right repertoire for them.
Cost – 6 500 RUB (five meetings), excluding the entrance fee
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Head of the club – Elena Markovna Dvoskina – musicologist, Candidate of Art Criticism, associate professor of Moscow Tchaikovsky State Conservatory, teacher of Moscow Gnessin Special School of Music, senior researcher at the State Institute of art studies; author of books, various articles and publications. |
