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The Arts Intel Report

Inon Barnatan, piano

February 2, 2024
1395 Lexington Ave, New York, NY 10128, United States

Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances, written in America but drenched in dreams of Mother Russia, is a work of rare sonorities (the instrumentation even includes a part for alto saxophone). Yet in tandem with the orchestral version, Rachmaninoff produced a two-piano version, which he introduced together with Vladimir Horowitz at a private party in Beverly Hills in 1942. If ever there were pianists who could conjure up whole symphony orchestras, Rachmaninoff and Horowitz lead the pack. Now the Israeli-American pianist Inon Barnatan sets out to go them one better, performing the Symphonic Dances in his own transcription for a single keyboard. To raise the stakes just a little more, he has programmed excerpts from Stravinsky’s Firebird in the staggering transcription of Guido Agosti, a disciple of Ferruccio Busoni, another Dumbledore of the keyboard. —Matthew Gurewitsch