ABSTRACT
English refers to the practice as “four-hand(s),” as in Sonata for Piano Four Hand, or, simply, four-hand music; German renders it ’Tour-handed/’ which doesn’t parse well in literal translation. In compositions involving more than one instrument, it’s the specific excess of keyboards that gets title-page mention, not the additional hands required to realize the music. For a long time, duets for two keyboard instruments were quite common, reaching their apogee of popularity during the course of the nineteenth century. Four-hand piano transcriptions (leaving aside music first composed expressly for piano four-hand) were pitched to the bourgeoisie as a domesticated, and indeed privatized, version of what was originally intended for the public concert. "Vierhandig, noch einmal" was published in the Vossische Zeitung on December 19,1933, the conclusion of a momentous year in German history. Making music, not in subservience to familial authority as a rehearsal for life after childhood, but in equal partnership with his elders.
