Piano duets on five Greek tunes by Harizanos

Something about 5/4 time breaks us out of our expected symmetry of being two-legged individuals.

Like Henk Alkema’s 2nd piano duet, the fourth piece in a set of 5 duets by Athens-based composer Nickos Harizanos also uses 5/4 time. I can’t say Brendan Kinsella and I did it justice in this recording below, but it gives you an idea of the unusual meter.

IV Here Comes the Swallow piano duet by Nickos Harizanos

excerpt from Here Comes the Swallow piano duet by Nickos Harizanos

Harizanos’s 5-piece set definitely met my criteria in my Call for Scores for Multi-hands Piano Duets for Sightreading: readable, playable, and sightreadable. Short but fun. They are characteristically Greek and interesting to play and listen to.

What a difference it was to play and listen and judge on electric pianos vs acoustic grand pianos. When Karyn Sarring and I tried these on electric pianos in Maui, we thought they had potential. When I tried them with other pianists in San Francisco and Utrecht, we thought they were interesting and fun.

Hopefully I will get a chance to record all five duets. But recording these is not the ultimate objective. I simply want to share good and fun music in my travels.

More importantly, communicating and interacting with another musician through duet-playing is like the way children play with each other. There’s no need for extended conversation. We just play.

Five Piano Duets by Nickos Harizanos:

1. Out there in the valleys
2. Down there at the seaside
3. We have a wedding day
4. Here comes the swallow
5. Corfu Dance