The Sonata for Two Pianos is a work by Germaine Tailleferre written in 1974 for the American two-piano team Gold and Fizdale, to whom it is dedicated. The work was published in 1999 by the French music publisher Musik Fabrik.
Sonata, in music, literally means a piece played as opposed to a cantata, a piece sung. The term evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms until the Classical era, when it took on increasing importance. Sonata is a vague term, with varying meanings depending on the context and time period. By the early 19th century, it came to represent a principle of composing large-scale works. It was applied to most instrumental genres and regarded—alongside the fugue—as one of two fundamental methods of organizing, interpreting and analyzing concert music. Though the musical style of sonatas has changed since the Classical era, most 20th- and 21st-century sonatas still maintain the same structure.
Marcelle Germaine Tailleferre was a French composer and the only female member of the group of composers known as Les Six.
Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale were an American two-piano ensemble; they were also authors and television cooking show hosts.
The work is in three movements: an opening Toccata-like allegretto, a slower andantino which uses a theme clearly inspired by the Pavane in Tailleferre's 1929 ballet La Nouvelle Cythère and a final brilliant allegro which uses polytonality to create a playful atmosphere which ends abruptly.
Toccata is a virtuoso piece of music typically for a keyboard or plucked string instrument featuring fast-moving, lightly fingered or otherwise virtuosic passages or sections, with or without imitative or fugal interludes, generally emphasizing the dexterity of the performer's fingers. Less frequently, the name is applied to works for multiple instruments.
The pavane, pavan, paven, pavin, pavian, pavine, or pavyn is a slow processional dance common in Europe during the 16th century (Renaissance).
Polytonality is the musical use of more than one key simultaneously. Bitonality is the use of only two different keys at the same time. Polyvalence is the use of more than one harmonic function, from the same key, at the same time.
The work was probably never performed by Gold and Fizdale, due to their retirement from the concert stage because of Arthur Gold's problems with his hands.
Recordings
Clinton-Narboni Duo "Germaine Tailleferre - Music for Two Pianos and Piano Four-Hands", Elan Recordings (1997)
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