2 old broads play 4 hand
These ladies are not drying their nails. They are talented pianists and one of them, Betty Larson Butcher, (right) graduated from Jefferson High in 1965. She was musical then, of course, playing the trumpet, singing in the choir, performing piano recitals. She lives in Arkansas now, but spends summers in Alexandria, in her childhood Elm Street home. She and husband, Perry, purchased and refurbished it recently.
This summer Betty practiced hard for her concert, she practiced this fall until her arm went numb. But the concert went well. Read the clipping below for details and the basis for the crass blog headline.
Perry and Betty will be in Alexandria for a couple weeks around Christmas.
Four Hands Trump Two
Duo Brings Classic Literature to Piano Performance
By Becca Bacon Martin, Callboard Editor
Claire Detels and Betty Butcher have been friends for most of two decades – and it’s a good thing. When they sit down at the piano, they have to prove four hands are better than two – and they have to be of one mind about it.
“Tension can arise in a performance if you’re not on the same page,” admits Detels, a longtime professor of music at the University of Arkansas. “The Beatles didn’t stay together, you know.”
Instead of stress, Butcher finds pleasure in the four-hand piano duets she plays with her old friend.
“My life turned upside down when my husband (Perry) had a stroke,” she says. “I can’t commit to theater anymore; it takes too much time. But I continue to sing with the Good Shepherd Singers and the Master Chorale, and this fits in well. It’s just a real joy.”
The music Butcher and Detels will play Sept. 23 at the Arts Center of the Ozarks doesn’t sound anything like the recital duets everyone knows from childhood. Detels, who is a great scholar of classical music, explains that four-hand piano arrangements were the way the common man of the 18th and 19th centuries heard the symphonies of the masters like Mozart and Beethoven.
“The piano has been around since 1700, but initially it was smaller than it is now – just five octaves,” she explains. “In the 18th century, as it became larger, it became possible for two people to sit at it and play duets together.
“There are pictures of Mozart playing duets with his sister!”
Detels says piano manufacturing “just exploded” in the 19th century, and “a whole lot of middle-class people had access to pianos who rarely would have heard a symphony orchestra. That’s how people got to know the classic literature.”
Detels and Butcher met when Butcher was a student at the UA and Detels was teaching there. Both studied with piano virtuoso Alan Chow, and they “just got in the habit of playing four-hand piano literature.”
“We started performing a couple of years ago and decided to go professional,” Detels says. “Now we’re on the Arkansas Arts Council touring roster, so we’re going to rev up and do even more performing.
“People seem to love it,” she says of the music she plays with her friend.
“I think they identify with some of the sillier aspects of playing four-hand, like the cross-hand activity, and there’s a real joy to chamber music when you see chamber musicians really together.
“We call ourselves “Two Old Broads Who Play Four-Hand,” Detels adds, “so we like to have a little fun as well as play the really fine music. When you’ve got two butts on one bench, it’s bound to be entertaining!”
Duo Brings Classic Literature to Piano Performance
By Becca Bacon Martin, Callboard Editor
Claire Detels and Betty Butcher have been friends for most of two decades – and it’s a good thing. When they sit down at the piano, they have to prove four hands are better than two – and they have to be of one mind about it.
“Tension can arise in a performance if you’re not on the same page,” admits Detels, a longtime professor of music at the University of Arkansas. “The Beatles didn’t stay together, you know.”
Instead of stress, Butcher finds pleasure in the four-hand piano duets she plays with her old friend.
“My life turned upside down when my husband (Perry) had a stroke,” she says. “I can’t commit to theater anymore; it takes too much time. But I continue to sing with the Good Shepherd Singers and the Master Chorale, and this fits in well. It’s just a real joy.”
The music Butcher and Detels will play Sept. 23 at the Arts Center of the Ozarks doesn’t sound anything like the recital duets everyone knows from childhood. Detels, who is a great scholar of classical music, explains that four-hand piano arrangements were the way the common man of the 18th and 19th centuries heard the symphonies of the masters like Mozart and Beethoven.
“The piano has been around since 1700, but initially it was smaller than it is now – just five octaves,” she explains. “In the 18th century, as it became larger, it became possible for two people to sit at it and play duets together.
“There are pictures of Mozart playing duets with his sister!”
Detels says piano manufacturing “just exploded” in the 19th century, and “a whole lot of middle-class people had access to pianos who rarely would have heard a symphony orchestra. That’s how people got to know the classic literature.”
Detels and Butcher met when Butcher was a student at the UA and Detels was teaching there. Both studied with piano virtuoso Alan Chow, and they “just got in the habit of playing four-hand piano literature.”
“We started performing a couple of years ago and decided to go professional,” Detels says. “Now we’re on the Arkansas Arts Council touring roster, so we’re going to rev up and do even more performing.
“People seem to love it,” she says of the music she plays with her friend.
“I think they identify with some of the sillier aspects of playing four-hand, like the cross-hand activity, and there’s a real joy to chamber music when you see chamber musicians really together.
“We call ourselves “Two Old Broads Who Play Four-Hand,” Detels adds, “so we like to have a little fun as well as play the really fine music. When you’ve got two butts on one bench, it’s bound to be entertaining!”
Perry and Betty Butcher in their Alexandria home on Elm Street.
