Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Request for suggestions for 4-hands piece

Can you please recommend nice pieces for 4 hands piano (on one piano) that the two players are not the same level? One is an intermediate player and the other is advanced.

What style, period, composer?

This one is a perennial favorite

Brahms, waltz op. 39 no. 15 in A major.

The pianist magazine issue 99 dedicated pieces to 4 hand pieces.

But the parts are of about equal difficulty.

First of all, Brahms op. 39 no. 15 is in A-flat major and besides it's a solo piece. Maybe you had a different one in mind?

PS: I know about the simplified version by Brahms, which is in A major, but that one is also a solo piece.

No specific requirement , need to find something we both like.

44 Original Piano Duets from Haydn to Stravinsky, published by Theodore Presser. My piano group uses this book. We have players of all skill levels, so we can always find something in here that everyone can play.

Sam

Brahms arranged all the waltzes for piano duet(not sure if the solo or duet version was the original version) and the duet version of No. 15 is in A major. OTOH this piece does not, I think, fit the OP's request because the parts are of equal difficulty and neither part is advanced.

There have been some duets written specifically for pianists of different ability but I can't recall what they are. I think they're mostly for an advanced pianist together with a low intermediate player. In fact, I think a PW member who is a composer wrote a volume of such pieces. Unfortunately, I can't remember his name either but maybe another PW member can recall it.

The PW duet book by a member is written for a true beginner and someone more experienced (usually a teacher). The member is Nickolas and the duets are ‘Fairyland in Treble’.

The online site to try is www.8notes.com. This is a members site with some free music and some for members only. The annual membership fee isn't very much. You can browse through the pieces in the piano duet section and see whether Piano 1 & 2 is at the appropriate level for 2 students. Each piece has the sample score & the playback button top you can hear the whole piece and see the score as it is played.

You can't always find original pieces for 4-hand piano so have to accept arrangements of pieces for 4-hand. Be patient and you may find a few pieces for 1 player that is more advance than the other.

And here's a link to the site where you can find Fairyland in Treble by Nikolas Sideris: musica ferrum

You will not find too many pieces for advanced and intermediate players. There are pieces for advanced and beginner pieces. What I would suggest is starting with intermediate pieces and working up. Moszkowski's Spanish Dances and Mozart's Sonata in D are good starts. Weber's duets are good, enough so that Hindemith used them as the basis for his Symphonic Metamorphoses, although one is based on an overture, which he probably learned as a 4-hand arrangement. But then, there are a number of arrangements of opera overtures, which tend not to be too difficult, and symphonies. Schumann's duets are worth looking into. Schubert wrote the largest canon, but his duets run the gamut from very easy to quite advanced, so I suggest cutting your teeth on some of these other pieces. Work your way up!

Thank you, this seems to indeed fit a beginner.
But I’ll add to the requirements that we are looking for pieces written by known composers.
I’ll have a look on the Brahms .
Thanks for the suggestions so far , I’m open to hear more !

And of course thanks BDB for the great suggestions

If I had the opportunity to play 4 hands with an advanced pianist I would want to learn the Schubert Fantasia. A quick look at the score and I think I could possibly manage the bass part. Not sure if there are any hidden bombs in there though

Not nearly what most would call an intermediate piece for either part.

The velocity of the allegro vivace would probably defeat me it's true. Especially playing with someone else, bound to break down somewhere in that movement. Also it's a lot to remember the whole fantasia.
The first movement is quite straightforward though and so lovely. Would just need to truncate the ending if playing as a seperate piece.

You could do something like this