From Muffat to Beethoven: Richard Egarr and Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya

About the Event

Before the age of recordings, four‐hand piano arrangements were the way to experience orchestral music at home. Duo Pleyel revives this tradition with their performances on an 1848 Pleyel piano.

Duo Pleyel
Richard Egarr and Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya are accomplished harpsichordists and pianists. The Pleyel piano, favored by Frédéric Chopin, is synonymous with the Paris salon experience and intimate music‐making. Over the past four years, Duo Pleyel has focused on performing and recording Carl Czerny's four‐hand arrangements of Beethoven's symphonies, a repertoire Egarr is deeply familiar with, now presented in a piano format.

From Muffat to Beethoven
The concert's first half showcases solo harpsichord works by Muffat and Handel, followed by two four‐hand harpsichord pieces: one by J.C. Bach and another by Mozart. The program opens with a selection of dances from the Suite in G minor, part of Gottlieb Muffat's Componimenti Musicali (1739), known for its intricate ornamentation and French stylistic influences. Handel's Suite in E major (HWV 430), featuring the famous Air and Variations (the Harmonious Blacksmith), is a staple in harpsichord music yet rarely performed in concerts. The second half highlights the Pleyel piano with Czerny's four‐hand adaptation of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony.