Christina & Michelle Naughton, Piano Duo

The first piano duo in history to receive Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Career Grant, Christina and Michelle Naughton are stellar orchestral soloists and "master-pianists" (Gramophone), who "have to be heard to be believed" (Washington Post). The pair return to Duke Performances with some of the most dynamic and challenging works in the repertoire, all of which were initially written for other forces: Grieg added the additional second piano part to Mozart's Sonata No. 16, while Ravel himself transcribed his own orchestral work - originally conceived as a ballet - into a two-piano reduction. When Beethoven refused to translate Große Fuge into a four-hand piano arrangement, the publisher called upon Anton Haim to complete the task. Intensely disliking the transcription, Beethoven then drafted his own fiendishly difficult arrangement, which the Naughton sisters tackle in this concert.