The Verbier Festival & Academy 10th Anniversary: Piano Extravaganza - DVD9

In just a decade, Switzerland's annual Verbier Festival has become one of the premier international musical celebrations, attracting a who's who of world-renowned artists to the Swiss countryside, in the shadow of the Alps, for more than two weeks of classical music performances. In celebration of the 10th anniversary of the festival, a group of the world's greatest pianists gathered to play arrangements of classical favorites for four to 16 hands on one to eight pianos. Pianists Leif Ove Andsnes, Nicholas Angelich, Martha Argerich, Emanuel Ax, Claude Frank, Evgeny Kissin, Lang Lang, James Levine, Mikhail Pletnev, and Staffan Scheja perform works by Mozart, Wagner, Rimsky-Korsakov, Smetana, Sousa, and Gottschalk. Also featured is Bach's "Concerto in A Minor" for four pianos, performed with the Verbier Birthday Festival Orchestra: Renaud Capuçon, Sarah Chang, Ilya Gringolts, Gidon Kremer, Vadim Repin, Dmitri Sitkovetsky, Christian Tetzlaff, Nikolaj Znaider, Yuri Bashmet, Nobuko Imai, Mischa Maisky, Boris Pergamenschikow, and Patrick de Los Santos.

There's something imposing yet also slightly humorous in the sight of eight pianos on a single stage. Eight people assembled to play eight pianos makes 16 hands, 80 fingers, with a total of 704 (88 × 8) keys at their collective disposal. Eight violins or even eight double basses do not seem so incongruous, but with that many pianists behind that many pianos, you know there will be a lot of noise, and a lot of notes.

Tracklist: Mozart - Sonata for two pianos, KV 521 * Smetana - Sonata in one movement * Heidrich - Happy Birthday Variations * Bach - Concerto for 4 pianos, BWV 1065 * Rossini - Semiramide Overture * Wagner - The Ride of the Valkyries * Benjamin - Jamaican Rumba * Gould - Stars and Stripes Forever Suite * Gottschalk - L'union: paraphrase de concert sur les airs nationaux * Rimsky-Korsakov - Flight of the Bumblebee

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