Elizabeth and Marcel Bergmann – the Bergmann Piano Duo – may be primarily known to Semiahmoo Peninsula audiences as classical artists, a role that extends to their artistic directorship of the White Rock Concerts subscription series.
But the adventurous duo, partners in music and life, have long shown they are more than willing to expand the traditional parameters of concert repertoire, utilizing their dazzling, classically trained technique to re-interpret a wide variety of music for two acoustic pianos.
This versatility can be seen in their most recent CD, American Stories, in which they have finally been able to bring together all of Marcel’s bravura arrangements of Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story songs, as well as idiomatic salutes to composers as diverse as Chic Corea, Pat Metheny, Astor Piazzola and Egberto Gismonti.
And it will be in evidence in abundance this Saturday (Jan. 28) in the concert Wish You Were Here: The Music of Pink Floyd & More for Two Pianos at 8 p.m. at the Centre Stage at Surrey City Hall (13450 104 Ave.).
Featured are Marcel’s arrangements of some of the iconic band’s most famous tunes – including Money, Welcome to the Machine and Shine On You Crazy Diamond – along with another `70s favourite – Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells Part 1, from the 1971 cult classic The Exorcist.
If Tubular Bells and Pink Floyd seems like a stretch for classical musicians, it’s by no means a recent one in the Bergmanns performing career.
Marcel originally adapted Tubular Bells for two pianos and two keyboards – it ultimately became a four-piano piece – for a festival they played in Holland in 2005.
“I always liked it – I was a big fan of Oldfield,” said Marcel.
Son of a filmmaker, he grew up in Munich surrounded principally by jazz and classical music – but he remembers his father was the one who introduced him to Pink Floyd, and the long-form piece Wish You Were Here in particular.
“A friend of our family had gone to America in 1975, the year the album came out, and brought back a copy for my father. He loved Wish You Were Here and used it in one of his films about (poet) Rainer Maria Rilke.
“When I was a teenager it resonated with me and a lot of my friends – those progressive rock groups were doing interesting things, including soundscape elements.”
While he feels that such pieces grew out of improvisation, the urge to create in long form led to extending themes and motifs in a way that recalls such classical composers as Beethoven.
Elizabeth, who grew up in a much more strictly classical musical environment, in Medicine Hat, Alta., said she was never exposed to Pink Floyd until she met Marcel, although she knew Oldfield’s work from the soundtrack of The Exorcist.
“The interesting thing for me coming from the classical side is that I’ve had to learn how to play this – some of it is quite complicated in terms of meter. And when Marcel has written it out I have to learn it – but then make it sound spontaneous and free.”
Also challenging, said Marcel, is finding an acoustic piano equivalent of the long-amplified sustained notes of Wish You Were Here.
“You have to work out how to use things like tremeloes and arpeggios adding up to this flourish of sound,” he said.
“I have a lot of fun doing this.”
Tickets, available at the door, are $25-30, including all fees.
For advance tickets call Surrey Civic Theatres Box Office at 604-501-5566 or visit tickets.surrey.ca
