Piano duet. The existence of the genre in the nineteenth century

The study of the history of any musical genre implies its detailed characterization in certain historical epochs associated with changes in artistic and social orientations. Such a separate epoch is the XIX century – the age of Romanticism, the time of modification of a number of well-known musical genres. The genre of the piano duet is undergoing a similar transformation at the specified time. The subject of research in this article is the specifics of the existence of a piano duet in the context of a significant rethinking of the semantic and stylistic thesaurus of musical art in general, which occurred in the XIX century. It is emphasized that the genre not only changes the specifics of its performance (there is a gradual transition to the concert stage), but also undergoes internal stylistic transformations. For the first time in musicology, attention is paid to the reasons for the spread of the genre in the XIX century, a classification of duet compositions (concert and chamber types) is created, the features of the content, form, texture, tempo, performing techniques characterizing a piano duet at a specified time are considered, and the reasons for the modification of its genre features are also named. The works of S. Geller, E. Grieg, L.M. Gottschalk, K. Reinecke and a number of other composers are presented as examples. As a conclusion, the reasons for the disparity of duet compositions of the XIX century in artistic terms are noted.

piano duet, 19th century, musical genre, musicology, genre style, art criticism, history of music, genre theory, chamber music, ensemble