The Queen of Sheba in NZ

As we wrote at the beginning of the year, playing piano is an important way in which we express our love of music and piano duets are a special way for us to enjoy this together.  On March 18 we had the pleasure of sharing our music with about 70 people at the Northridge Retirement Village, where one of our Quaker friends resides.

We had fun with this recital.  When introduced and before we said a word, we launched into Handel’s “Arrival of the Queen of Sheba” from the opera “Solomon” (listen to our 4 minute video recording here).  Then I (Marsha) introduced us by recounting that 36 years ago, I processed down the aisle to that music on our wedding day.

The rest of the concert included an original 4-hand piano sonata by Mozart (one of 4 he composed), two late 19th-century transcriptions of string quartet movements by Beethoven, two slavonic dances by Dvorak  that he originally wrote for 4 hands, and Faure’s “Pavane” which was originally a piano solo piece and is most well-known today as an orchestral piece.

In between each piece, we each shared more of our story, the history of the piano, and the music itself. We recounted how we spent part of our honeymoon in a music store in Minneapolis, purchasing music with money given to us for that purpose at a wedding shower hosted by the women of the Presbyterian Church I grew up in. We shared excerpts of a letter Beethoven wrote to his brothers in his mid-30’s describing the agony of learning that he was going deaf and how his art sustained him. We shared how playing piano duet music in the Victorian age was one of the few opportunities for a young man and a young woman to sit so intimately, with hips and hands touching (!), in public! We let the audience know that they were being voyeurs!

We were grateful by how our muse rendered the interpretations and at the close of the slow movement of Beethoven’s String Quartet op. 59 no. 3 you could have heard a pin drop. The audience greeted the recital with very warm appreciation and we were thanked for our clarity. Listening to a 4-hand piano recital was a new experience for most. So now we have an invitation to give a life-long learning class at a retirement centre on the history of the piano as seen through the window of the piano duet. Should be fun!