RAE ROBERTSON and ETHEL BARTLETT
FOR many generations duets for two players on one pianoforte have been among the most popular of all forms of music-making in the home. Much music has been written specially for performance in that way, and nearly all the classical orchestral music has been so arranged for the endless delight of enthusiastic players, as well as their friends ; it has spread a knowledge of the classics in many places where there was no chance of their being heard in their original forms. The chief difficulty which the players have to overcome is the tendency to get in each other's way. The left hand of the treble player and the righthand of the bass sometimes overlap, and unless the two performers are both reasonably slender in build, each is apt to complain of being thrust too far from his or her part of the keyboard.
That difficulty, of course, vanishes when two pianofortes are used ; the composer or arranger of the music, too, has a much wider scope in making the parts overlap where necessary, adding considerably to the volume and richness of tone, when both players can use the same part of the keyboard at once.
Listeners have already had many opportunities of enjoying the effect when two distinguished artists like Ethel Bartlett and Rae Robertson join forces; for some tune past they have specialized in playing duets for two pianofortes, discovering . many attractive pieces which can be delightfully presented in this way.
The Sonata by one of the many Bachs who had so big an influence on the music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, is a slight piece as compared with modem Sonatas, and each of its three movements is short and simple in form.
Arnold Bax , represented by a short descriptive work, is already known to listeners as one of the foremost English musicians of his generation. This piece. which appeared in 1917, is a tone poem on an Irish theme.
Arensky, one of the most distinguished
Russians of the last generation, was a great teacher as well as composer. Best known to us in this country by songs and pianoforte music, and particularly by his pianoforte Trio in D Minor, he showed his interest in music of this order by composing three Suites for two pianofortes.
Rachmaninov is well known to English audiences not only as a brilliant pianist himself, but as conductor and composer also.