On July 10th, pianists Augustė and Ieva Petkūnaitė will gift the audience of Paliesius Manor a wonderful piano duo program, “Magic for Four Hands”!

The sisters will play four hands at a single piano, presenting the rich possibilities of making music together—a performance genre that holds a special place in their hearts. The pianists have carefully selected four works for piano duo four hands, revealing the diverse musical expressions found when two artists share one instrument.

Arriving from Mozart’s city of Salzburg, they will share the music of this genius composer with the audience. The bright, playful, and elegant W. A. Mozart’s “Sonata in D major”, K. 381, for piano four hands will open the concert. This piece beautifully reveals the early history of the piano duo genre, when such music was still played in intimate salons. Mozart himself performed it with his sister, Maria Anna Mozart. Listeners will hear an abundance of playful musical motifs and dialogues that create the harmonious sound of a piano duo.

F. Schubert’s “Fantasie in F minor”, D 940, is one of his most famous and essential works for piano four hands, widely considered a masterpiece of the genre. Composed in 1828, during the final year of Schubert’s life, it belongs to his late creative period. The Fantasie itself unfolds in four movements (Allegro molto moderato – Largo – Allegro vivace – Allegro moderato), played without pause, with transitions that are nearly imperceptible. Only the shifting character of the music marks the passage from one to the next. This was a deliberate choice by Schubert, allowing the listener to immerse themselves entirely in a seamless musical narrative. After a long, dramatic arc, the piece intriguingly concludes with the same theme that played at its beginning, as if waking from a dream. It is with good reason that this Fantasie is regarded as one of Schubert’s most renowned works—it leaves no listener indifferent.

French impressionist M. Ravel’s “Rapsodie espagnole” transports us to a magical, temperamental, and profoundly colorful world. Originally composed for a symphony orchestra in 1908, the composer himself later arranged a version for piano duo. “Rapsodie espagnole” consists of four movements—”Prélude à la nuit”, “Malagueña”, “Habanera”, and “Feria”. The entire thematic essence weaves an impressionistic palette of colors with the rhythms of Spanish dance. Interestingly, Ravel created this masterpiece before he had ever visited Spain. Yet, Spanish melodies and rhythms were far from foreign to him: Ravel’s mother was of Spanish descent and would sing Spanish songs to him before he fell asleep as a child.

The evening will conclude with C. Czerny’s “Grande Sonate, Op. 178 in F minor”. This is a virtuosic, temperamental, and tempestuous sonata, demanding exceptional harmony between the two performers. The four-movement “Grande Sonate in F minor” belongs to a group of Czerny’s concert works composed for piano duo. It is distinguished by the composer’s remarkable ability to reveal an extraordinary variety of musical expression when playing four hands.

Twin sisters Augustė and Ieva Petkūnaitė—Piano Duo Petkunaite—were born in Klaipėda in 1998. In 2025, they completed their piano performance studies at the Freiburg University of Music in Germany (Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees under Prof. Christoph Sischka). Since 2025, they have been studying piano duo performance at the Mozarteum University Salzburg in Austria (under Prof. Andreas Groethuysen and Yaara Tal).

Their piano duo has taken first place in eight international competitions. In 2019, they won first prize at the 19th Schubert Piano Duo Competition (XXI. Schubert-Wettbewerb) in the Czech Republic (under-21 category). In 2020, they won first prize at the International “Gianluca Campochiaro” Competition in Sicily in the piano duo four hands category, and second prize as the best piano duo at the Ilmari Hannikainen Chamber Music Competition in Finland. In October 2020, they earned first prize at the 9th International Interpretation Competition of “Ostracized Music” (Interpretationswettbewerb Verfemte Musik) in Germany. In November 2024, they won first prize with the maximum score (Primo Premio Assoluto) in the piano duo four hands category at the 33rd International Piano Competition “ROMA” in Rome.

The piano duo has performed in Lithuania, Germany, Finland, the Czech Republic, and Italy. In 2023, Augustė and Ieva Petkūnaitė performed in the “Cognito” concert series, organized in collaboration with the Yamaha Music Europe Foundation, and in October 2024, at the opening celebration of the Brahms Festival at the Freiburg Theater. They have also performed with the Jyväskylä Sinfonia (Finland), the Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra, and the Munich Chamber Orchestra (Germany). The duo reached the semifinals of the 70th ARD International Music Competition in Munich.