Andreas Staier and Alexander Melnikov’s 2017 Harmonia Mundi recording of Franz Schubert’s “Fantasie in F Minor” is not “the moody, broody thing it tends to be on modern Steinways,” writes Kate Molleson for the Guardian. “The sound is more intimate, more spruce; high notes have a pearliness that make the melodies really ping.” The award-winning pianists, who excel at chamber music played in historically accurate styles, perform an all-Schubert program of four-hand works — two players at one piano. Part of the Middlebury College Performing Arts Series, the concert echoes the composer’s habit of playing intimate duets in friends’ homes.
