THE BRANDENBURG DUETS
Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos
arranged for piano duet by Eleonor Bindman
ELEONOR BINDMAN, piano
JENNY LIN, piano
“The existing Piano Duet transcription of the Brandenburg Concertos proved to be of no avail to musicians so I felt compelled to create an accessible arrangement, one that could place these masterpieces into the heart of the piano-four-hands repertoire next to Mozart's Sonatas and Schubert's works. By recording the Brandenburg Duets, I hope to attract fresh attention to the art of partnership on one keyboard and to inspire amateur and professional pianists alike to engage in music-making of the highest order. We can never have too much Bach.” – Eleonor Bindman
Brandenburg Duet No. 2 in F major
(1685–1750)
About this Recording
Unlike the only published piano duet arrangement by Max Reger, which has serious performance limitations, Eleonor Bindman’s new transcription of the Brandenburg Concertos highlights their polyphony, imagining how Bach might have distributed the score if he had created four-part inventions for piano duet. With an equal partnership between the two instrumentalists, using the modern piano’s full potential to convey the unique scoring and character of each work, the concertos are ordered to create an engaging listening sequence.
TOTAL PLAYING TIME: 51:26
TOTAL PLAYING TIME: 45:10
Praised for her ‘lively, clear-textured and urbane’ Bach performances and her ‘impressive clarity of purpose and a full grasp of the music’s spirit’, New York-based pianist, chamber musician, arranger and teacher Eleonor Bindman was born in Riga, Latvia, and began studying the piano at the E. Darzins Special Music School at the age of five. She received a BA in music from NYU and completed her MA in piano pedagogy at SUNY, New Paltz under the guidance of Vladimir Feltsman. Bindman has made recordings as a soloist and as part of Duo Vivace with pianist Susan Sobolewski. She is the author of several piano compositions and transcriptions, including Mussorgsky’s A Night on Bald Mountain and a set of original piano works for children, An American Calendar, published by Carl Fischer, Inc.
Jenny Lin is one of the most respected young pianists today, admired for her adventurous programming, exceptional technique, sensitive touch and charismatic stage presence. Her orchestral engagements have included the American Symphony Orchestra, the NDR and SWR Radio Symphony Orchestras, and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai. Her concerts have taken her to Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, the Kennedy Center, MoMA, and the National Gallery of Art, as well as appearances at festivals such as Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart, Kings Place (London), the Chopin Festival (Vienna), and the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival in Germany. Jenny Lin studied at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna, the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, and at the Fondazione internazionale per il pianoforte in Italy. She is a Steinway Artist.
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