A shared language for a fraternal piano duo

Little in classical music is more thrilling than two 9-foot concert grand pianos with performers at opposing keyboards engaged in what is at once an intense duel and an intimate collaboration. 

One of the most recent sets of duo-pianists to make names for themselves are the Dutch brothers Lucas and Arthur Jussen. When they were just 10 and 13, they performed Mozart’s Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra in E-flat Major, K. 365, with Amsterdam’s famed Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and their careers have soared ever since.

After performing in January on the Symphony Center Presents Piano series, the Jussens will make their Chicago Symphony Orchestra debut Oct. 4-6 in that very work that thrust them into the spotlight as children. Mozart wrote the 25-minute piece in 1779 apparently to play with his sister, Maria Anna “Nannerl,” who like him was also a very fine keyboardist.

The two brothers — Arthur, 28, and Lucas, 31 — never made a conscious decision to perform as duo pianists. It just occurred naturally, because they grew up in the same musical family (their mother teaches flute and their father is a percussionist in the Dutch Radio Philharmonic Orchestra) and had the same piano teacher, Jan Wijn.

“Once I started to play the piano,” Arthur said in a 2023 interview, “our piano teacher said, ‘Listen, you live in the same house, you both study the piano, why not make music together? Why not play piano for four hands or two pianos?’”

So that’s what they did, and they have never stopped since. They enjoyed playing together then, and still do, though they occasionally have to remind themselves not to lose track of that innate joy. “Sometimes with the career and the pressure and important concerts, you forget why you actually started,” Arthur said. “We started because we loved it so much.”

“We hope that when people hear us, they will recognize a little bit of Maria João Pires in us,” Lucas said.

The two pianists have each had some important teachers, including Menahem Pressler, the celebrated pianist of the Beaux Arts Trio, which was active from 1955 through 2008. But no one had more of an influence on them than Portuguese pianist Maria João Pires, one of the most celebrated soloists of her generation (performing on the SCP Piano series on May 25).

The brothers were adolescents when they studied with her, taking in everything she had to offer quickly and hungrily. Instead of offering direction with words, she often preferred to demonstrate what she was looking for, asking one or the other to scoot over on the piano bench and give her room. “As a child, when you are 12 or 13 years old, that’s maybe the best way to understand what a teacher wants or what they want to tell you,” Lucas said.

From Pires, they learned the importance of breathing and never separating technique from musicality. “We hope that when people hear us, they will recognize a little bit of Maria João Pires in us,” Lucas said.

Now enjoying a top-level international career, the brothers have been exclusive recording artists with Deutsche Grammophon since 2010, winning two Edison Awards, an annual prize that is the Dutch equivalent of the Grammy Awards.

Unlike a solo pianist who can follow his or her own artistic fancy, the biggest challenge for a duo pianist is adaptability. “When you play as a duo, you want to sound as one,” Lucas said. “In order to do that, you have to adapt, to listen to what the other person is doing and anticipate what the other person is doing. That’s the biggest difficulty and at the same time, that’s the one thing that makes it a lot of fun.”

Arthur was quick to acknowledge that many fine piano duos are not composed of siblings or spouses, but he believes it helps that he and his brother grew up together, practiced together and got to know what he called each other’s “language of playing.” “I know Lucas so well, and I know Lucas’ playing so well that in a concert, for example, if he goes somewhere in a phrase, I already feel where he is going, because his language of playing so much.”

“I know Lucas so well, and I know Lucas’ playing so well that in a concert, for example, if he goes somewhere in a phrase, I already feel where he is going, because his language of playing so much.”

In December 2023, the Jussen brothers undertook a 12-concert tour of Holland and Germany with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta, an ensemble they know well. “It’s always nice to come to a group of people in which you feel comfortable,” Arthur said. “That sounds a little bit childish, but it is true.”

The two pianists and the chamber orchestra performed without a conductor in what Arthur called “chamber music-like fashion,” so they don’t feel so much like soloists but members of the group. “We try to be part of them and really make music together,” he said.

Their Symphony Center Presents program began with Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major, K. 448, what Arthur described as an “absolute masterpiece.” Much of what they said about that work can be aptly applied to the composer’s Concerto for Two Pianos as well.

The piano parts are “completely equal,” Lucas said, and call for well-matched pianists. In addition, it exudes abundant energy and joy. “He makes the two pianos correspond with other in such a delicate and good way,” Arthur said.

The two brothers were “extremely excited” to make their Chicago debut last season, and it seems sure their emotions have not dimmed for this return visit.  “Of course, for us,” Arthur said, “it is a city, a place that lights up the imagination for us — the amazing orchestra that is there and all the wonderful artists who have performed in the hall.”