ALEXANDER VIVERO

UPCOMING PRESENTATION

Within the framework of the International Piano Festival, Alexander Vivero and Aranza Ortega present a recital titled “Echoes of the 20th Century for Two Pianos.” The program brings together three representative works from the twentieth-century orchestral repertoire, all performed in versions for two pianos. It opens with Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances, Op. 45, his final orchestral work, written in 1940 and heard here in an arrangement prepared by the composer himself. The concert also features the world premiere of the two-piano, four-hands version of Silvestre Revueltas’s Sensemayá (1938), based on a poem by the Cuban writer Nicolás Guillén. The second half presents Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring (1913), one of the most influential scores of the twentieth century, performed in the two-piano transcription Stravinsky created shortly after the orchestral premiere in Paris.

Program

This concert unites three iconic twentieth-century orchestral works, presented in two-piano versions that reveal with striking clarity their rhythmic, harmonic, and timbral architecture. The journey begins with Rachmaninoff’s final symphonic testament, continues with a world premiere by Revueltas, and culminates in Stravinsky’s primordial energy.

Sergei Rachmaninoff — Symphonic Dances, Op. 45 (1940)

Two-piano version prepared by the composer

Rachmaninoff’s last orchestral work, Symphonic Dances distills his late style: sweeping melodies, liturgical resonances, and an orchestration with an almost cinematic sheen. In the composer’s own two-piano transcription, listeners can perceive the score’s inner craftsmanship—its counter-lines, layers of density, and harmonic progressions that sustain the musical argument.

I. Non allegro: tension between rhythmic drive and shadowed lyricism.
II. Andante con moto (Tempo di valse): a spectral waltz—elegant, off-center, and unsettling.
III. Lento assai—Allegro vivace: a quotation of the Dies irae and a finale of relentless virtuosity.

In the two-piano format, orchestral percussion is suggested through sharp accents and extreme registers, while the color palette becomes a high-virtuosity pianistic dialogue.

Silvestre Revueltas — Sensemayá (1938)

Two pianos, four hands — world premiere

Based on the poem by Nicolás Guillén, Sensemayá is a sonic ritual of obsessive rhythm and hypnotic magnetism. Revueltas builds a rising crescendo of tension through interlocking rhythmic cells that mesh like gears, supported by a harsh, earthy harmonic language. This new two-piano, four-hands version transfers the percussive drive to the keyboard through ostinato patterns, interlaced syncopations, and hammering harmonic blows that evoke drums and brass. The result is a close-up experience of the work’s vital pulse, where every accent and displacement gains physical presence.

Igor Stravinsky — The Rite of Spring (1913)

Two-piano transcription by the composer

Few scores reshaped twentieth-century music as decisively as The Rite of Spring. In Stravinsky’s two-piano version—prepared shortly after the orchestral premiere—the work’s rhythmic construction and harmonic blocks emerge with raw immediacy. The keyboard’s transparency lays bare the engineering of rhythm: metric superimpositions, displaced accents, and motives that fracture and recombine.

Part I: The Adoration of the Earth: ritual, tribal dances, elemental telluric energy.
Part II: The Sacrifice: static lines that erupt into rhythmic violence and reach final catharsis.

The two-piano reduction does not diminish the orchestra—it reimagines it. The bluntness of attack, the hammered low register, and the broken chords replace orchestral mass with a different, almost choreographic intensity.

One evening, three perspectives

This program proposes three ways of understanding the past century: Rachmaninoff’s modern nostalgia, Revueltas’s mestizo ritual, and Stravinsky’s rhythmic revolution. Heard on two pianos, these works unfold like large-scale chamber scores—unveiled, unvarnished, with both their skeleton and their heart fully exposed.