Piano-Duo Tal & Groethuysen
When Yaara Tal & Andreas Groethuysen joined forces as a provisional piano duo in 1985 on the occasion of a single concert, they could of course not estimate the significance of this step either for themselves personally or for this genre as a whole. However, the unforeseeably positive artistic development and the never-ending interest on the part of the record label SONY CLASSICAL and the international concert market allowed the duo Tal & Groethuysen to mature into one of the most programmatically exciting and tonally-aesthetically perfect piano duos ever. Their recordings have been honoured five times with the "ECHO Klassik", since then once with the OpusKlassik 2021, eleven times with the "Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik", the annual prize of the Ruhr Piano Festival 2022, the "Cannes Classical Award", the "Schwabinger Kunstpreis", etc.
After Andreas and Yaara devoted the first years of their career primarily to the more difficult and, to the outside world, initially not quite so effective playing on one piano, the duo shifted this focus in the years that followed - and also enjoys performing and producing the fascinating, in part still unknown repertoire for two pianos. .
Selection of the planned dates
News
1923
29,04,2023 Klavierfestival Ruhr. Essen
09.05.2023 Mubich
Yaara performed the programme (as described in the article below) twice in concert immediately after the CD production, once as part of the Ruhr Piano Festival and then in the Bavarian Radio's series of studio concerts.
The Munich concert in Studio 2 of the BR was reviewed by the Süddeutsche Zeitung (Rita Argauer) on 11.5.2023 under the title "Not only for nerds":
"... "Yaara Tal fortunately doesn't take it all too hard. One notices her great desire to play, even or especially when she plays solo - as she has been doing more often lately - after almost 40 years as a duo."
Photos: BR/Vera Johannsen
The concert in the important Ruhr Piano Festival took place in the Museum Folkwang in Essen. After a guided tour of the museum and a lecture on the subject of music and art in 1923 (Tobias Bleek), Yaara played the corresponding programme.
A detailed online review also struck joyful notes: "The approximately 80-minute programme not only performs Tal in a first-class manner musically and pianistically, but also presents the composers and works in a knowledgeable and entertaining manner. Well-deserved, long-lasting ovations are the thanks she gets. She thanks them with a beautiful little encore from 1922: "The Little White Donkey" - original title: Le petit âne blanc - from the pen of Jacques Ibert."
1923
In her new project, Yaara dedicates herself to compositions that were created in 1923. Politically, socially and economically, the year was highly complex: on the one hand, the consequences of the First World War formed an unstable and threatening situation, but at the same time, the shadow of the Second World War was already brewing over Europe. The "classical" music of the time seems to have been little affected by all this, and displays a variety of styles and influences. Last but not least, the 12-tone system made its breakthrough in Vienna, marking a significant turn in the history of music.
The programme is a colourful, exciting selection of works by composers Delius, Achron, Bloch, Hauer, Schönberg, Eisler, Klein, Janáček, Mompou, Tansman and Jaques-Dalcroze. The work by F.H.Klein is for piano 4 hands, and of course Andreas was in on it.
The repertoire was produced for a CD (release by Sony Claasical on 25.8.2023). The recording took place in 2 sessions during April 2023 in Studio 2 of the Bayerischer Rundfunk.
Sound engineers: Ephraim Hahn and Jörg Moser.
Our photographer Gustav Eckart captured something of the atmosphere in the studio with his camera:
Photos: Gustav Eckart
The Gramophone magazine asked a jury to select the best 250 recordings of all time. T&G's big Schubert box is also in the exclusive circle:
Schubert belongs to the core repertoire of every piano duo, but there are hardly any duos that devote an entire evening programme to this repertoire.
T&G have recently done this several times, among others in a recital in Moers (Klavierfestival Ruhr 21.5.2023). With this concert season, the festival's long-time artistic director Prof. Franz Xaver Ohnesorg is ending this task, which he has shaped brilliantly. The programme "Schubert pur" was his wish, and Andreas & Yaara were happy to oblige.
Here are two impressions of the concert:
Photos: KFR
Interview with Yaara Tal & Andreas Groethuysen, „Avec esprit“
The Gramophone (Jeremy Nicholas) published a review of the Avec esprit CD on 23/5/2023.
„Before I begin, I must declare an interest: I am a fully paid-up member of the Tal & Groethuysen fanclub. They have produced over the past 30-plus years some of the finest recordings in the catalogue of music for two pianists, all for the Sony label. While the husband-and wife- team has provided benchmark recordings of Mozart, Schubert, Mendlessohn and Brahms, Sony has, admirably, never batted an eyelid over some of their obscure repertoire for the four hands: Koechlin? Wagner? Reger? Gouvy?"
15.9.2022 Milan
+ 16.9.2022 Torino
+ 30.9.2022 Rungis (Paris)
+ 3.10.2022 Salzburg
+ 5.10.2022 Munich
Great success with international audiences for Reinhard Febel's studies on Bach's Art of Fugue. Enthusiastic and devout, always impressed and moved is the reaction to this work. In Milano, Torino, Salzburg and Munich, only this composition was on the programme; at the Piano Festival in Rungis, works by Mozart and Saint-Saëns were also heard.
Here are some press voices (translated from Italian and French) and the corresponding photos.
Milan
„....For eighty-five minutes, the ideal performers Tal & Groethuysen shaped Bach's notes and the revised notes with emotional tension and created expressive moments of excellent quality. The audience appreciated Febel's work and of course the excellent interpretation of the two outstanding pianists.“ (Cesare Guzzardella)
Photos: Aldo Banfi Associazione XMITO
*****
Rungis Piano-Piano Festival 2022
„...We admire the interplay between the two musicians, which was particularly impressive in Saint-Saëns' Variations on a Theme of Beethoven, a difficult score whose myriad pitfalls our duo only laughs at. In addition to its brilliance and wide dynamic range, it is the finesse with which it runs through the fast passages while maintaining a pianissimo nuance: true virtuosity.“ (Bertrand Boissard)
Photo: Nathanael Charpentier
*****
Munich - Bayerische Akademie der schönen Künste
„...Some fugues have to be played very slowly, some enormously fast, sometimes the structures become clearer, sometimes they almost blur: this is immensely exciting to listen to, and anyone who ever got a little tired during a one-and-a-half-hour complete performance on harpsichord or organ will stay wide awake here, because every moment something else unexpected and enlightening happens."
Klaus Kalchschmid, SZ 6.10.2022
*****
Salzburg - Mozarteum
Photo: Christian Schneider / Universität Mozarteum
Schubertiade Schwarzenberg 25.8.2022
The Symphonic Quartet with Schubert
For the first time with violinist Ye-Eun Choi, the quartet achieved great success in front of a packed Angelika Kauffmann Saal. Spontaneous jubilation after the first performance of the C major symphony. The echo in the press also gave reason for satisfaction: "These four create a kind of symphonic chamber music with beautiful blossoming sound, great concentration and intense togetherness. The roaring climaxes are completely organic, the melodies, which presumably everyone in the hall can sing along with, blossom and are passed on. Schubert's "celestial lengths" present themselves in all their freshness and original musical power.“
"The equally likeable and convincing piano duo of the Israeli Yaara Tal & and the German Andreas Groethuysen, regulars at the festival since 1994, is the ideal cast for this, competently supported by the South Korean violinist Ye-Eun Choi and the Munich cellist Raphaela Gromes."
Photos: Schubertiade
The winner of the Ruhr Piano Piano Festival Prize 2022 is the Duo!
Each year the Ruhr Piano Festival honours artists whose life’s work is closely connected with the Ruhr Piano Festival.
The recital this year on July 8th
Tracing Bach
A lengthy review of Tracing Bach on the polish radio:
Tracing Bach in the Italian press:
"Ogni disco di Yaara Tal, sia solistico - come in questo caso - che in duo col marito è ricco di prelibatezze. … Virtuosismo su livelli eccezionali ma non fine a se stesso, al servizio del contrappunto bachiano."
James Manheim reviews Tracing Bach on Allmusic:
„….but whether one accepts the idea or not, what Tal has accomplished here is a novel way of demonstrating the resonances of Bach's music in later eras, and that's something to celebrate. Sony Classical's sound from the studios of Bavarian Radio is ideal“.
MiTO Festival
20.-21.09.2021
Goldberg Variationen
Milano: Teatro dal Verme
Torino: Conservatorio Verdi
A beautiful journey and two events in inspiring halls. Please find this interview from Turin, as well as a very qualified review:
Now it is official: the duo wins the OpusKlassik Prize 2021 in the category Chamber Music Recording of the Year. The award-winning CD is Reinhard Febel's Studies after J.S.Bach's Art of Fugue.
Jewish Telegraph, Friday August 13, 2021
Brother's birthday pianowas kex to Yaara's success
T&G was awarded the Critic’s Choice in the category Keyboard music for their CD with Febel’s Studies on The art of Fugue:
„Yaara Tal and Andreas Groethuysen, who commissioned these eighteen studies, play them with breathtaking clarity and conciseness. The most intricate rhythms take on natural ease, the elaboration of themes and secondary voices, the most refined dynamic gradations, and, last but not least, an extremely changeable piano sound that makes this recording a breathtaking experience". For the jury: Gregor Willmes
New CD-Release
1923
a.o.: Delius, Achron, Bloch, Hauer, Schönberg, Mompou, etc.
Yaara Tal
Release: August 25, 2023
Label: Sony Classical
Avec Esprit
Gouvy, Ysaÿe, Saint-Saëns, Mélan-Gouéroult
Duo Tal & Groethuysen
Release: March 03, 2023
Label: Sony Classical
Tracing Bach
J. S. Bach and 10 other composers
(L.F. Prinz von Preußen, Alkan, Chopin, Feininger, Febel etc.)
Yaara Tal
Release: August 8, 2021
Label: Sony Classical
- more info [+]
- Order online | Amazon | Saturn | Ex Libris | Hugendubel | Spotify
- CD-Reviews
- more about the project
Beethoven's World
Beethoven • Wranitzky • Reicha • Vorizek: Concertos
Christian, Eß, Koncz, Mönkemeyer, Schwamm, Tal
Münchner Rundfunk Orchester
Reinhard Goebel
Release: January 29, 2021
Label: Sony Classical
Beethoven's World
Eberl/Dussek:
Concertos for 2 Pianos
Duo Tal & Groethuysen
Frankfurt Radio Symphony
Reinhard
Goebel
Release: October 16, 2020
Label: Sony Classical
Reinhard Febel
18 Studies on "The Art of Fugue"
Duo Tal & Groethuysen
Release: August 14, 2020
Label: Sony Classical
- more info [+]
- more about the project
- Order Online JPC | Amazon
- Febel-Single (Study No. 3) on Spotify
On the occasion of Clara Schumann’s 200th birthday on September 13th 2019:
Love?
Homage to Clara Schumann
Yaara and friends
Release: August 9, 2019
Label: Sony Classical
- more info [+]
- more about the project
- Listen on SONY, Spotify,
Apple Music, etc - CD-Reviews (international)
- Order online JPC | Amazon
Schubert:
Compl. Piano Music
for four hands
Available April 26, 2019
Label: Sony Classical
Karol Rathaus
Concerto for piano
and orchestra op. 45
Yaara Tal
Release: February 2019
Label: The Fryderyk Chopin Institute