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articles
--Piano Magazine
--Classical Music Magazine
--Financial Times
Financial Times, Feburary 1, 1998
Twins with a dual purpose
Michael Church talks to the Turkish Pekinel
sisters
Snubbed by Europe, pursüd by fundamentalist
Islam, the Turks are poised between cultures as
never before. So it is heartening to find plans
for an arts centre which will link the heritages
of east and west, with a music library like no
other in the world. The Istanbul Culture and
Congress Centre should do for Istanbul what the
Lincoln Center does for New York.
The Pekinel twins, who will play in London and
Bristol next week, are helping to make this
happen. Glamorous and well-connected, Güher and
Süher Pekinel might seem quintessential
fund-raisers, were it not for the fact that they
are also musicians of the first rank (as witness
their Mozart and Stravinsky recordings).
They constitute a couble-act of surpassing
strangeness. Two-piano playing is an art which
falls somewhere between chamber and solo
performance, and the Pekinels have made it their
own. They seldom look at each other as they
play; back-to-back, they never falter. Is this
thanks to their biological advantage? "No!" they
shout in unison, side by side on a sofa.
"People think that because we are identical
twins, we can play together more easily, but
actually it's harder for us," says Süher. "Most
twins want to be the same, but we have always
wanted to be different," says Güher.
"Being different," Süher adds, "is the essence
of duo-playing. The first requirement is to
breathe together, and that was born into us. But
then we have to develop our individual and
separate strengths." "That is why we didn't play
the same pieces at college," says her sister,
"and why we work alone on our interpretation of
the works we play together."
Unlike many duos they each study both parts, and
therefore each have their own views of how they
shold be played. Finally they harmonise.
"We rehearse one way," says Güher, "and then on
stage she does something completely different.
But I feel exactly as she does at that moment.
Off stage we fight, but on stage it's complete
harmony. Now how does that happen?"
With identical twins, one is usually dominant:
is this the case? Süher: "Sometimes I am
dominant, and sometimes she is. I am more
dominant in analysing the work; she is more
dominant in life, and in emotional matters."
Both are married to Turkish husbands and for the
past two years hey have been off the concert
circuit, which was getting too stressful. But
they have been collaborating on a German
television documentary about their work and they
are now firing on all cylinders to get
sponsorship for the library.
They stress that this will be as much for the
traditional music of the Middle East - on the
oudh, the nay, and the kanun - as for western
classical music. For "Turkish composers have
great difficulty in getting their work
published, let alone performed," says Süher.
"In the end, music is a big energy with millions
of small lights. It only needs to be projected,
to create harmony among human beings," Güher
argüs. And the Pekinels are doing their bit to
push back the boundaries of the art they learned
at Frankfurt, the Curtis, and the Juilliard.
Their next recording will be of some Bach
concertos arranged by Jacqüs Loussier. And no,
they are not imitating the Labeqüs: where they
have led, the Labeqüs have followed.
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