Sonatas for Four Hands

Here's a release of rare repertoire sure to intrigue and delight anyone with more than a passing interest in 18th-century musical culture. The English scholar, musician and inveterate traveller, observer and collector Charles Burney is known for many things - fine taste, a ready wit and a capacious address book principal among them - but his own compositions have so far received almost no attention. Burney's encyclopedic knowledge and breadth of sympathy are evident in the two volumes of the Four Sonatas or duets for two performers on one Pianoforte or Harpsichord, which he published at his own expense in London in 1777. In fact the novelty of the sonatas was a commercially astute decision, for although they are in essence conceived for solo piano, there was at the time no other published music for the increasingly popular form of duet music at a single keyboard.