The pianos are set up on stage to face each other, which might seem unusual at first.
Many duos put their pianos side by side so they can watch each other's fingers.
John and Richard Contiguglia each like to see the other's face. At times, it must seem like staring in a mirror.
They are identical twins, hard for the casual observer to tell apart. For most of their 70 years, they have been inseparable, from their days in grade school and college to the nearly 50 years they've spent performing professionally together.
They sit across from each other on the stage not so much to accentuate the novelty of their being twins. It's a communication thing.
"We look at each other and from then on it's listening more than looking," Richard explained in a phone call this week from his New York City home to chat about the brothers' first-ever Tucson area concerts next weekend. "Everything comes together as one. . . . When we perform on two pianos, we perform without scores. There's nothing that stands between us except the two pianos."
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The brothers began playing piano when they were 5. They grew up in Auburn, N.Y., a few hours removed from the bustle of New York City where they have lived in separate apartments in the famed Ansonia building since 1974.
They moved to New York a dozen years after they made their professional debut in London in 1962 at the urging of the famed pianist and arranger Dame Myra Hess.
Throughout their lives, John recalled, he and his brother have been on the same page.
"We've been very, very similar academically and very close in our skills throughout high school, college, graduate school," he noted. "Both of us found music very appealing."
In graduate school at Yale, John briefly flirted with a career in chemistry while Richard kept on the music track. Two weeks into the semester, John switched his major to music, but he still took chemistry electives.
It never really occurred to them to have solo careers; they had spent so much time playing works for two pianos or four hands that it was only natural to carry on.
Their programs dip into the vast vault of two-piano/four-hand repertoire.
"We play Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Liszt, Bartók. There's a great deal of music," John said. "George Gershwin, Debussy, Ravel, Schumann. Almost every great composer wrote something for two pianists. One of the greatest composers of all time, Franz Schubert, wrote more music for two pianists at one piano than he did for two pianists at two pianos."
Their concerts next weekend, which benefit cancer research at the University of Arizona, will feature different programs, and each will include a work for four hands on one piano. During those works, the brothers' intuition shines brightest.
"People ask us how do you know when to play together, and I don't think about it," Richard said.
"We've been at it a long time," John added. "There's a lot we take for granted in combining our music."
Preview
• What: Benefit piano recital featuring the duo of Richard and John Contiguglia.
• When: 7 p.m. next Friday, 2 p.m. April 28.
• Where: Valley Presbyterian Church, 2800 S. Camino del Sol, Green Valley.
• Tickets: $15 by calling Bill Good at 625-9102. Proceeds benefit University of Arizona cancer research.
• Program:
April 27 — Liszt's Symphonic Poem No. 4, "Orpheus"; Debussy's "En Blanc et Noir"; Ravel's "Ma mère l'Oye" (one piano, four hands); Grainger's Fantasy on George Gershwin's "Porgy & Bess"; Grainger's "Molly on the Shore."
April 28 — Liszt's Symphonic Poem No. 4, "Orpheus"; Schumann's Andante and Variations, Op. 46; Schubert's Variations on an Original Theme in A-flat major (one piano, four hands); Mozart's Sonata in D major; Arensky's Valse from Suite for Two Pianos, Op. 19.
