Czech Philharmonic ⬩ Katia and Marielle Labèque

Historically, choral singing has been an important part of Czech musical life. In the English-speaking world and other countries such as Japan, brass ensembles have enjoyed similar popularity within society. With its Artistic Director Robert Kozánek, the Czech Philharmonic Brass Ensemble will treat listeners to the rich sound world of brass instruments. They have prepared a sample of works from the Venetian early Baroque composer and organist Giovanni Gabrieli. His canzonas will be heard in arrangements by the American trumpeter Rolf Smedvig.

Pianists Katia and Marielle Labèque have already played much of the two-piano repertoire for the public of Prague including new works. This time, they return with the Concerto No. 10 for Two Pianos and Orchestra, which Mozart wrote to play with his beloved sister Nannerl. We do not know whether this ever happened, but later Mozart played the work with his pupil Josepha Barbara Auernhammer, about whom he said: “she plays delightfully but lacks the genuine fine and lilting quality of cantabile; she plucks too much”.

In the case of the Labèque sisters, the concerto is in safe hands. Their superb ensemble playing will be sure to let Mozart’s melodic invention, elegance, and purity shine through. They are also experts in engaging in satisfying musical dialogue and virtuosically merge the sound of two concert grand pianos. And that truly is not an easy discipline:

“We think that the problem for a piano duo is that playing together on two pianos is so difficult that it often leads to a metrical, mechanical kind of playing. If there’s something that we hate with a passion, it’s metrical, didactic, square playing. All our lives, we’ve been looking for balance that lets us perceive music in waves, and not as something vertical. We want to play horizontally even at the cost of sometimes not being perfectly together because that’s not at all important. The main thing is for each musical phrase to speak. All our lives, we’ve been working to achieve a certain freedom of phrasing and joint breathing that lets us play together without having to give each other any signals” – Katia and Marielle Labèque in an interview for Harmonie.