Four hands on one instrument

Hey, hitch up the wagon is the title of the first piece and could also be an encouragement to form a duo on the instrument. In this collection of 20 pieces, piano pedagogue and aural training teacher Martin Reich has combined well-known melodies by Brother Jacques to the topic of Rhapsody in Blue arranged for piano four hands. In progressively arranged movements, he covers a stylistically broad spectrum from classical music and folk songs to gospel, blues and ragtime.

However, he pursues a very specific pedagogical intention with his arrangements: the primo and secondo parts should be balanced both musically and in terms of technical demands. Thus we find a good-sounding, relaxed style of writing, which is characterized by the fact that the melody is not only heard in the treble, as is so often the case, but also in the middle and lower voices in the secondo. This not only sounds colorful, but also requires the players to listen carefully to each other and strive for a good balance between the parts. The pieces are usually relatively short, clearly structured and provided with fingerings. They range in difficulty from lower to intermediate level. I can well imagine that the first pieces in particular can also be used well in sight-reading lessons with slightly more advanced pupils (recognizing structures, thinking in positions).

Martin Reich: primo & secondo. 20 balanced arrangements for piano four-hands from children's songs to Rhapsody in Blue, EB 8895, € 16.90, Breitkopf & Härtel, Wiesbaden 2017