The duo-piano medium regularly promises more than it delivers—twice the number of fingers does not make for double the excitement. This is because a single piano is designed to be self-sufficient or contrasted with other timbres rather than reduplicated, and because the sharpness of attack makes synchronization problematical and so constrains interpretative freedom. It is partly as a result of these drawbacks that the repertoire of worthwhile pieces is comparatively small. You have to be well disposed, not to say addicted, to the sound of the modern piano to find a record such as this one enticing.
Happily, the programme, the recording, and above all the performance, give the addict every prospect of gratification. Three out of the four items may be versions of orchestral works (and only one of the arrangements is the composer's own); but they do make up an original and nicely thematic programme. The Chandos engineers have come up with a good blend of clarity, warmth and spatial separation, and Feder and Gilgore just as expertly combine unanimity with pianistic flair.
El salon Mexico is perhaps the most difficult of all the pieces to bring off, and the rubato here is understandably a bit regimented (the Bernstein arrangement could actually be improved upon in this respect). The opening of An American in Paris, by contrast, sounds just right, and it is no surprise to learn that Gershwin's original draft was for the two-piano medium. Feder and Gilgore contrive to evoke the klaxons of the orchestral score by cunning rhythmic pointing as much as by tone-colour, and generally they give a truer sense of the Gershwin idiom than do the flashier Labeque sisters (EMI EL270122-1, 10/84). The absence of the all-important percussion in the Cuban Overture is compensated for by the clarification of the harmony, and I certainly had not noticed before how much Rachmaninov there is in the piece (Dies Irae paraphrase and all, I fancy).
First impressions of the Barber Souvenirs were of clever Gebrauchsmusik contrivances. But by the last of the six movements I found myself won over—as much by the style and wit of Feder and Gilgore as by Barber's unashamed mishmash of Satie, Milhaud, Granados and Tom Lehrer-style accompaniments (not confined to the Lehrer-style Hesitation Tango). The instruments are perhaps a fraction too velvety for this programme, but that hardly detracts from what is a most attractive issue.'