Four Hands At The Ready For Music For Montauk

Anna Polonsky doesn’t feel terribly bad when she accidently knocks elbows with her four hands piano partner, Orion Weiss, while they’re practicing. Or even after she nails him in the ribs on stage.

After all, Mr. Weiss is also her husband.

“We’re still on good terms,” she laughed during a telephone interview from their Manhattan apartment last week. “We’re two humans trying to fit four hands into a tiny little space. There’s a lot of negotiation we have to do. We write in our score, ‘elbow up,’ ‘sit back,’ ‘lean left.’ Otherwise, injuries might ensue.”

The payoff is worth the risk, the couple agreed—not only for them, but also for their listeners, who can next catch them on Saturday, September 15, when they open the 21st annual “Music for Montauk” series at the Montauk Library.

“Four hands is really fun to play, really fun to watch for the audience,” Mr. Weiss said during his time on the telephone. “You have to at least have some warmth in your heart for the person you’re playing with because you’re so close for so long. And we do love each other, so it makes it quite easy and quite fun.”

Their upcoming, upbeat program kicks off with Gabriel Fauré’s “Dolly Suite, Op. 56,” written in the late 19th century for Hélène Bardac, known to her family as “Dolly,” who was the daughter of his mistress, singer Emma Bardac.

“It’s childlike music, but 
it’s also incredibly beautiful,” Mr. Weiss said. “It’s one of 
Fauré’s masterpieces.”

Works from composers Maurice Ravel and Robert Schumann will juxtapose Fauré’s “Dolly Suite” and “Rondo in A Major” by Franz Schubert. The former are more “music for music’s sake—less joking around, more performing,” Ms. Polonsky explained.

“With the Schubert and Fauré, the audience gets to observe the interaction between the two players,” she said. “Sometimes there might be hand crossing. The left person’s right hand would cross over and under the right person’s left hand. It can get tangled up. That’s part of the charm and the joke of such repertoire, which of course you cannot accomplish in any other medium.”

Both pianists hail from music-loving families, so there was never any question that either would play an instrument, they said.

For Ms. Polonsky, it was just a matter of which one. Her father, Leonid, plays violin and her mother, Nina, is a pianist. She followed in her mother’s footsteps starting at age 5 and played her first solo concert in her hometown, Moscow, Russia, two years later.

Mr. Weiss began on piano at age 4 while growing up in Iowa. He continued to play when his family moved to Cleveland, Ohio soon after—though not willingly, at first.

“They encouraged me to keep going, and then they cajoled me and bribed me,” he laughed. “When I was 9, they decided to step away. That’s when I had to take the initiative and practice myself. That’s when I got really into it, actually. There was a challenge I could pour myself into and I could see my own improvement. More and more, I just connected with the music and it became completely a part of my life.”

Their passion, and talent, led them both to young artist programs. In 2002, Ms. Polonsky found herself auditioning for the Chamber Music Society Two at Lincoln Center in Manhattan. Her partner just happened to be one of the judges, she said, and, being a good friend, kept the pianist in the loop.

“The whole time, she was telling me, ‘Oh, it’s in the bag. It’s all formality. You just have to play fine and then you’ll be in. No problem,’” Ms. Polonsky recalled. “The night after the auditions, between the first and second rounds, she said, ‘You’re fine, you’ve passed on, but there’s this pianist—Orion Weiss—and he was amazing. Oh, you should go practice.’”

Ms. Polonsky said she didn’t have a good feeling about him, and she hadn’t even met him yet.

“I’ve forgiven him since then,” she chuckled.

The pair became better acquainted during their studies at the Juilliard School a couple of years later, Mr. Weiss recalled, noting that they officially met in an elevator between classes.

“I don’t remember the elevator,” his wife laughed. “Maybe it wasn’t even me.”

On their first date, Mr. Weiss didn’t take his future wife out to dinner and a movie. Instead, he pulled out “Waltzes, Op. 39” by Johannes Brahms from his music library and they played four hands together, he said.

It’s been musical magic ever since, the couple agreed.

“I think we pretty much have a pretty tight act going with four-hand playing. It’s incredible how far we’ve come in the five or six years we’ve been doing it,” Ms. Polonsky said. “And it’s certainly extremely convenient. You don’t have to go anywhere to rehearse. This would not be possible had we not been rubbing elbows, literally and figuratively, living in the same apartment.”

But next year, the pianists might have to make room on the keyboard for another pair of hands.

“Everyone will see, Anna is pregnant,” Mr. Weiss said, noting that she’s due in January. “We have a little baby girl on the way. We’ll be playing six hands pretty soon.”

He passed the phone to his wife and she said, while laughing, “It gives me nightmares to think about it. I think we’ll probably cross that bridge when we get there.”

Orion Weiss and Anna Polonsky will give a free four-hands piano concert on Saturday, September 15, at the Montauk Library, as the opener of the 21st annual “Music for Montauk” series. For more information, call 668-4607 or email sally@gtabs.com.