Güher & Süher Pekinel - Mozart: Complete Piano Duets (1991)

The Labeque sisters are not alone! For Guher and Suher Pekinel are twins and piano duettists—by which I also mean that they play works for two pianos. Looking at their names, I wondered about their nationality, and the booklet tells us that they are in fact ''of mixed Turkish/Spanish parentage'' and that from the age of about ten their training was at the Paris Conservatoire, the Frankfurt Musikhochschule, under Rudolf Serkin at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and finally at the Juilliard School, New York. This is a good background, and the playing style and ensemble are as secure as it leads us to expect. Theirs is sometimes a robust way with Mozart, but it remains pleasantly flexible both tonally and rhythmically, and in the first work of all (K19d) they show the kind of skill that unfussily makes the natural-sounding best of the conventional material written by a boy of nine on his London visit. I particularly like the way they're unafraid to use the sustaining pedal in its Minuet second movement, giving it charm as well as dignity. Slow movements such as the lengthy Andante of K497 are also nicely shaped, with a tonal warmth that never oversteps proper stylistic bounds, and finales dance and bustle pleasantly, too (try those of K358 or K448 for examples). Incidentally, the sound of the Steinway piano that they use does not seem to me inappropriate, and the Berlin recording is well focused with natural resonance and a good dynamic range including a real pianissimo. It seems almost needless to say nowadays that exposition repeats are faithfully observed.
The Fantasia in F minor, written for a mechanical organ but one of the composer's most intensely dramatic utterances, comes off fairly well (but not as well as with Frantz and Eschenbach, who are compelling in this great work), but I still prefer the weight and variety of organ tone here; and if the Adagio of the C minor Fugue with its two-piano writing is a trifle ponderous, the D major Sonata for two pianos that follows is not at all so. This welcome issue contains some useful rarities such as the G minor Fugue, K401, left as a substantial fragment and completed by Maximilian Stadler, and the equally incomplete G major Sonata, K357, finished by Julius Andre, where the variation theme of the second movement is presented with stylish wit.
The Pekinel sisters are unfortunate in that Justus Frantz and Christoph Eschenbach cover much the same ground on two mid-price CDs instead of three full-price ones. If they omit the incomplete Sonata in G major, K357, and the two fugues, that is no great loss; and while they do not enjoy the fine modern recording accorded to the Teldec artists, the DG sound remains respectable, although sometimes dryish and slightly clattery in forte, and there is little tape hiss. These two pianists are notably well attuned and their performances as a whole deserve clear commendation, but, save in the Andante and Variations in G major, their approach is more coolly classical than the Pekinels' (try the Andante of the D major Sonata, K381 to hear what I mean) and on technical and artistic grounds I would choose the more recent issue. However, unless money is not a consideration you will perhaps feel that at its much lower price the DG issue with Frantz and Eschenbach is the one to have for this repertory. Whatever you decide, bearing in mind what I have written above, you should not be disappointed. Both of these issues include an informative booklet essay.