The husband and wife piano duo, Anna and Dmitri Shelest, have won numerous awards since beginning their piano studies in Ukraine before age 10 and continuing later at Julliard. This album features several composers’ piano 4 hands arrangements of orchestral works: Bedrich Smetana’s (1824-i884) The Moldau from Mà Vlast (My Life), Franz Liszt’s (1811-1886) Les Préludes, and Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s (1840-1893) Scherzo (Allegro molto vivace, 3rd mvmt) from his Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, “Pathetique,” and arrangements of Maurice Ravel’s (1875-1937) La Valse, and George Gershwin’s (1898-1937) Rhapsody in Blue. As the river flows melodically along, The Moldau evokes Eastern European villages and a wedding. "Les Préludes" is an orchestral tone poem based on Lamartine’s poem of the same name. The work’s sections portray A Question, Love, Storm, Bucolic Calm and Battle and Victory. The Scherzo from Tchaikovsky’s final symphony unleashes wild passions. Ravel’s La Valse depicts the birth, decay and destruction of the musical genre, the waltz. Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue is a jazz concerto, displaying both rhythmic invention and melodic inspiration. The opening clarinet glissando is said to be as well known as the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.