Of the nine pianoforte duets by Mozart two, the Adagio and Allegro in F minor and the Fantasia in F minor, were originally written for a mechanical organ or musical clock in a Vienna exhibition, and were afterwards arranged for piano by an unknown hand among the others, the sonatas KV 497 and KV 521 from the Vienna years stand out.Īmong the best-known composers, Schubert made the fullest use of the original effects possible to music 'à quatre mains.' His compositions include the Sonata in C major for piano four-hands, D 812, the Divertissement à la hongroise, D 818, and Fantasia in F minor for piano four-hands, D 940. The work of Mozart in this field is more significant. 45, and two sets of variations, none of which are of any great importance. According to Fétis, Haydn wrote but one piece 'à quatre mains,' a divertissement, which was never published (two other sonatas published under his name, op. Haydn and Beethoven appear to have had but little inclination for this description of composition. Wolfgang Amadeus and Maria Anna Mozart in 1780

But the short compass of the keyboard, which in Bach's time and indeed until about 1770 never exceeded five octaves, was ill-adapted to the association of two performers on the same instrument, and it is doubtless on this account that the earlier composers have left so little music of the kind.

So far as is known these were the first compositions of their kind, although the idea of the employment of two performers (but not on one instrument) may have originated with Johann Sebastian Bach, who wrote three concertos for two harpsichords, three for three, and one for four, all with accompaniment of stringed instruments. However, before this, Ernst Wilhelm Wolf, the musical director at Weimar in 1761, had written one or more sonatas for two performers, which were published after his death. The earliest known printed works for the pianoforte à quatre mains were published in Dessau about 1782, under the title Drey Sonaten füre Clavier als Doppelstücke fur zwey Personen mit vier Handen von C. However, the increase of power and variety obtainable by two performers instead of one offers a legitimate inducement to composers to write original music in this form, and the opportunity has been by no means neglected, although cultivated to a less extent than might have been expected. Such arrangements were especially popular before the development of recording technology, as the vast majority of the time there would be no other way to hear many of the best-known works of music. Sometimes, organ works and works for piano two hands with advanced difficulty have also been arranged for piano four hands, in order to make them accessible to amateurs. Indeed, scarcely any composition of importance for any combination of instruments exists which has not been arranged and published in this form, which on account of its comparative facility of performance is calculated to reproduce the characteristic effects of such works more readily and faithfully than arrangements for piano solo.

Repertoire Arrangements īy far the greater proportion of music 'à quatre mains' consists of arrangements of orchestral and vocal compositions and of quartets and other groups for stringed instruments.

Duet definition