Márton Borsányi: Concerto for 2 Harpsichords in B Minor

Márton Borsányi: Concerto for 2 Harpsichords in B Minor

Overture: 00:00:00
Adagio: 00:04:49
Menuet en Rondeau: 00:09:26

I wrote this Concerto for Two Harpsichords in B minor for Iklim Tamkan in January 2022. She often mentioned to me that she would love to have a new piece for two harpsichords in a Bach or post-Bach style. Some keyboard duos written by the Bach sons and Bach pupils such as Müthel and Krebs exist of course, but Iklim wanted to have something a bit heavier and more serious than the style of the composers mentioned above. So I thought the piece had to be in minor, had to be more dramatic and had to have a good drive.

The first movement is on Overture - a slow and dramatic opening followed by a playful concerto type fast section in which both harpsichords engage in a varied musical conversation.

The second movement is an Adagio, a slow and gentle flow of harmonies, one harpsichord playing in semiquavers, the other in quavers, almost like an arioso in a Passion.

The third movement is a light Menuet in a Rondeau form. It mixes the gentle pulse of an elegant menuet with more and more virtuosic musical elements as it is going from one couplet to the other, but never losing its elegance.

The concerto is based on ideas by composers such as Bach and Boismortier (even if they seem far apart), but most of all ideas by Telemann. The concerto is perfectly suited for both a harpsichord-duo, with one of them being a double, and an organ-harpsichord-duo as well, with the first keyboard never going over the standard 4 octave range.

It was a great honour for me to be able to premiere and record my composition with leading Turkish harpsichordist Iklim Tamkan at the Liszt Institute Istanbul in August 2023.

-Márton Borsányi

Iklim Tamkan, Márton Borsányi - Harpsichord

Instruments used on the recording:
Martin Schwabe: Single Manual Harpsichord after M. Mietke
Frank Hubbard: Double Manual Harpsichord after French Models

Iklim Tamkan Productions
Kıvılcım Konca - sound engineering
Kaan Gölgesiz - online edition