Legendary Australian pianist Michael Leslie returns from Germany to join Melbourne virtuoso Peter de Jager for a monumental musical event: Franz Liszt’s epic two-piano arrangement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. A towering feat of pianistic imagination, Liszt’s arrangement is a complete re-creation of Beethoven’s orchestral, choral, and solo forces through the hands of just two performers. In this dazzlingly difficult tour de force, two pianists at two pianos conjure the full sonic architecture of the symphony, from its elemental opening to the transcendence of the “Ode to Joy.” Liszt, himself the greatest piano virtuoso of the nineteenth century, created these symphonic transcriptions to bring the orchestral canon to wider audiences before the age of recording. Today, the Ninth Symphony arrangement remains one of the rarest and most formidable works in the entire piano duet repertoire, seldom performed, and even more rarely attempted live in concert.
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