Leif Ove Andnses and Bertrand Chamayou first performed Schubert’s Fantasia in F minor in 2016, at the closing concert of Leif Ove’s first Rosendal Chamber Music Festival in Norway. In the intervening years the two pianists have frequently returned to the keyboard together, gradually expanding their Schubert programme to include the Allegro in A minor, Lebensstürme, Fugue in E minor and Rondo in A major.
Now, nearly a decade after their first meeting, Chamayou and Andsnes have recorded these works on Erato (Warner Classics). The release coincides with a tour featuring Schubert and Kurtág, with performances in Dijon, Madrid, Oslo, Brussels, Amsterdam and Berlin.
Following their most recent performance at London’s Wigmore Hall this Spring, the Guardian praised the duo for their "intimacy and colour", remarking "close and complementary in style – the two made a rewarding team in Schubert."
As a genre, the piano duet, with two pianists sharing a keyboard, is both artistically and physically intimate. "It’s as if we have to become one," says Bertrand Chamayou, "because we are both controlling the same instrument. It has to do with the voicing, with the balance."
Leif Ove Andsnes feels that, when playing Schubert’s music. "You have a feeling that the truth is just around the corner, but not where you are … It is some of the most sensitive music there is. So one really needs to feel total sympathy, physically and musically, with the other pianist."
In the Fantasia in F minor, Leif Ove Andsnes plays primo, as he does in the Rondo in A major, D. 951, which also appears on the album. The two pianists change places for the Allegro in A minor, D. 947, Lebensstürme, and the Fugue in E minor, D. 952, as Bertrand Chamayou assumes the role of primo.
