Three monumental works for two pianists, played by the klavierduo huber|thomet, Susanne Huber and André Thomet. Debussy's En blanc et noir (1915) and Bernd Alois Zimmermann's Monologe (1964) are for two pianos; Stravinsky's own reduction of Le Sacre du printemps (1912/13) is for one piano, four hands. Each breaks with aesthetic conventions, reaches across wide historical and geographic horizons and demands the highest virtuosity.

The three pieces are tied together by dedications. Debussy dedicated the third movement of En blanc et noir "à mon ami Stravinsky", the first to Serge Koussevitzky and the second to Jacques Charlot. Zimmermann (1918-1970) dedicated Monologe to the brothers Alfons and Aloys Kontarsky, "in gratitude and remembrance", as a homage to Claude Debussy. The Kontarskys gave its first performance in Cologne on 7 January 1965, at WDR's Musik der Zeit series. The disc belongs to Wergo's Edition Bernd Alois Zimmermann.

Debussy wrote En blanc et noir in the first months of the First World War and made no secret of his disgust at the war and at the Germans he held responsible. Beyond the black and white keys, the title stands for the two sides: white for the French victims, black for the German aggressors. Its three movements are marked "Avec emportement", "Lent. Sombre" and "Scherzando". Monologe is Zimmermann's version for two pianos alone of his Dialoge for two pianos and orchestra. The two parts are independent, and keeping a balance between them is as hard as the writing itself. Quotations run through all five sections, from the Gregorian "Veni Creator Spiritus" through Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Debussy to Messiaen. They are drawn into a sound continuum created for the piece. Le Sacre du printemps renders in constantly shifting rhythms the elemental experience of the Russian spring. Stravinsky composed it at the piano, as the first sketches show. The spacing of the chords and the range are pianistic, so the duet is hardly a reduction: it reveals the original conception.

The title, Monolithen (monoliths), describes a programme of three large, self-contained blocks. Each is heard in a version for piano duo, which for Debussy and Stravinsky is the form in which the music was first conceived.

CD, Wergo WER 6809 2, in the WERGO Concept series, released in 2014 (total time 70'16").