"I have composed a big sonata and variations for four hands, and the latter have met with a specially good reception here, but I do not entirely trust Hungarian taste, and I shall leave it to you and to the Viennese to decide their true merit." So wrote Franz Schubert in 1824, evoking the popular 19th-century genre for 4-hands piano that publishers were always pestering him to write for. In his brief life Schubert devoted 32 compositions to this form and the least of these pieces, be it a ländler, polonaise or march, radiates with all of his finesse and sensitivity. Three are incontestable masterpieces, in the same rank as his sonatas or quartets: the Variations D813, the Fantasie D940 and the Rondo D951. All three date from the composer’s final years, a period that gave birth to his most accomplished works.

In concert, Andreas Staier and Alexander Melnikov have played Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, with Staier at the harpsichord, alongside Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues, with Melnikov at the piano. Sharing a keyboard evidently suits them just as well; their unique musical complicity bringing together four hands and two immense talents.

"Two very different but like-minded musicians, Andreas Staier and Alexander Melnikov, sat down together and offered a careful selection of these pieces...two musicians indulging in a Schubert feast of often outstanding quality... They breathed together, evolved together, gave each other wings. It is such a pleasure watching music being made through teamwork, even in – particularly in – the smallest of teams...

"Staier might as well have sung simultaneously, or instead of playing, such was his understanding and interpretation of those lines, behind which there is always a wordless Lied. The haunting opening theme in the Fantasy in F minor, D.940, with its pounding appoggiatura that stubbornly delays the perfect fourth interval that follows, defied any description." – Laura Furones, Bachtrack