“Thank goodness we then had Poulenc's Concerto for two Pianos to raise our spirits. It's been the party piece of the formidable Labèque sisters for years, but they still make it sound fresh, partly because they now play the deliciously sentimental passages with more freedom.
What followed – Elgar's rumbustious and melancholy In the South; Brahms's Alto Rhapsody and Bruckner's Psalm 150 – struck a weightier note and had some wonderful moments. But it was the café-concert charm and veiled melancholy of Poulence's concerto that left the deepest impression. Trifles aren't always trifling.” The Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/proms/5869400/BBC-Proms-2009-First-Night-of-the-Proms-at-the-Royal-Albert-Hall---review.html



“Poulenc's Concerto for Two Pianos (here signalling the festival's concentration on music for multiple pianos this year) took up the central plank of the programme in between the two intervals. It is an utterly bizarre confection — 'a party piece' according to Robert Maycock in the programme notes — that mixes gamelan-imitation, Mozart-parody, baroque gestures, parlour music, and neo-classicism, into a twisting and turning score that you're never sure of. It is by turns droll, moving, funny, and thrilling. The through-line could never be convincing, but the sudden return of the gamelan-music at the end following a vertiginous finale did make some strange sense. Katia and Marielle Labèque, all stamping feet and leaping arms, were perfect soloists. The levity was maintained into their favoured encore repertoire, a cheerful and lusty miniature from Adolfo Berio.” Musicalcriticism.com
http://www.musicalcriticism.com/concerts/prom09-1-0709.shtml

“One piano became two after the first interval, the Labèque sisters performing their signature concerto. Katia took the lead as the most demonstrative pianist, several times threatening to fall off the stool, and the pair’s virtuosity carried all before them in the faster music. The bittersweet end to the first movement was well achieved and the second movement began airily. The finale fair raced away, the small but well-powered string section just about keeping pace as the pianists dazzled. As an encore the sisters sat at one piano for Polka by Adolfo Berio (1847-1942), Luciano Berio’s grandfather, thrown off with humour.” Classical source
http://www.classicalsource.com/db_control/db_prom_review.php?id=7282

“Then, oddly, two very different pianists — Katia and Marielle Labeque, still the friskiest fillies on the keys — fizzed their way through Poulenc’s saucy Concerto for Two Pianos.” The Times
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/proms/article6718798.ece

“the Labeque Sisters, kittenish Katia and demure Marielle, attended to the deliciously subversive nature of Poulenc’s Concerto in D for Two Pianos romping between skittish music hall burlesque and twilit reverie with idiomatic aplomb. The straight-faced Mozart parody of the Larghetto was beautifully weighed in favour of affection rather than fun.” The Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/reviews/prom-1-bbc-symphony-orchestra-amp-chorus-belohlavek-royal-albert-hall-london-1752088.html

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