In the spring of 2014 the two pianists accomplished their latest project – they made an integral recording of Johannes Brahms’s 21 Hungarian Dances, for piano 4-hands, at the Bulgarian National Radio. The occasion – the composer’s 180th anniversary. The full cycle of his works had never before been recorded in this country.
“The Dances are very demanding, they require a great deal of virtuosity and that is a challenge for an ensemble like ours,” says Desislava Shtereva. “We discovered that the lesser known pieces from the cycle are in no way inferior to the ones that are better known – in their own way they too are piano masterpieces.”
The duo has ample experience in presenting works never before performed in Bulgaria. For many years renowned composer Alexander Yossifov entrusted them with the debut performance of his opuses. What are the professional aims the ensemble set themselves? Desislava Shtereva:
“We are happy to say we have been performing the newest works at the New Bulgarian Music festival practically every year; some of them were composed expressly for us. Our ensemble goes back a long way – we have been performing together for 15 years and are constantly enriching our repertoire. The Hungarian Dances were our latest challenge for 2014. For months we had been performing them at our concerts to very different audiences. We even presented them at the Bulgarian Cultural Centre in Hungary. We would very much like to release the cycle on CD; that will be top of the list on our agenda.”
Is there a formula of success for a piano duo? The answer from Evgenia Simeonova:
“We are both representatives of the Bulgarian and the Russian piano school. We met in Moscow. And we have many things in common – we both set ourselves very high goals and we have the same professional criteria… We are seekers after perfection and are on excellent terms with each other – that is something that helps us a lot.”
“If the partners in an ensemble have not found a common language it would be very difficult for them to perform together", Desislava Shtereva adds. "The big secret of the success of any chamber ensemble is to never stop building. That is what helps a musician grow. It is one thing to perform with different colleagues and quite another to have a solid basis to build upon.”
Besides performing, Desislava Shtereva and Evgenia Simeonova also lecture at the Pancho Vladigerov National Music School. “Young people who are not professional musicians should not avoid classical music concerts,” Desislava Shtereva says and goes on: “Having once entered this world they will find out just how thrilling and how full of surprises it is.”
The audio file features Hungarian Dances by Johannes Brahms №5, 6 and 17, performed by the Shtereva-Simeonova duo.
English: Milena Daynova
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