Duo Pleyel (Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya and Richard Egarr) takes its name from their pet piano - a beautiful instrument made in 1848 by Chopin’s preferred maker, Pleyel. The Duo has been working for the past 4 years to bring the rich and exciting repertoire for piano 4-hands to a wider public. They are particularly committed to providing mixed programmes ranging from the earliest music by Johann Christian Bach and Mozart, to the lesser-known early Romantics such as Hummel, Czerny and Dussek, and through to the great popular works by Faure, Debussy and Ravel in the twentieth century. Duo Pleyel’s debut CD released in April 2020 with a programme of works for piano four-hands by Schubert received a number of excellent reviews: ‘The performances are richly rewarding. Technically near-flawless… with a judicious choice of tempos and highly sensitive to the wide emotional range, they can be recommended without reservation’ - Early Music Review, May 2020. ‘Played with a marvellous understanding of the genre, imbued with a mixture of dance-like lilt and chamber-music rapport, most telling in the moments of carefully deployed rubato and Schubertian hesitation….it is given a performance here that balances its almost symphonic ambitions with its close-knit intensity to telling effect….unerringly evoked by the Duo Pleyel, fully justifying their choice of instrument and ensuring that the disc as a whole ends with an exceptionally powerful punch. The programme as a whole, recorded back in February 2019, seems almost tailor-made for our present times, offering both an outlet for pent-up feelings and the prospect of hope beyond suffering’ - Europadisc, April 2020 Duo Pleyel’s second album with the complete 4-hand music by Jan Ladislav Dussek was released in September 2021 and also met with critical acclaim: ‘Duo Pleyel use all the timbres, dynamics and attack of their period keyboard to tremendous effect. You’ll emerge wondering why this Bohemian composer isn’t more widely celebrated and much more frequently.’ - BBC Radio 3 'Record Review ' ‘Richard Egarr and Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya are superb advocates blending virtuosity and understated elegance in performances that truly inhabit the music.’ - Performance 5*/ Recording 5*. BBC Music Magazine November 2022 sees the release of a recording coupling the early 4-hand sonatas of Mozart with sonatas by his ‘musical father’ Johann Christian Bach.