When they started collaborating in the 1980s as a provisional piano duo preparing for one sole recital, Yaara Tal and Andreas Groethuysen could not foresee the significance that decision would have for their lives. Over the following decades, they evolved into one of the truly consummate piano duos on the international scene. Piano duo playing “requires the utmost degree of mutual agreement: it’s like flying blind together,” Groethuysen affirms. “As a duo, you blend, you almost melt together into one sole timbre, and there is obviously something erotic about that, too.” As a duo often presenting unknown music in elaborately conceived programmes, Tal and Groethuysen stand out for their spontaneity and astounding degree of rapport. As recipients of the 2022 Ruhr Piano Festival Prize, they prove time and time again how fascinating four-hand repertoire can be, particularly music composed for two pianos. In a Schubert programme on this occasion, they are returning to perform at the Ruhr Piano Festival for the 18th time.