A volume of the Edition Paul Hindemith devoted to Paul Hindemith's music for piano four hands and two pianos. It ranges from an early waltz suite and a ragtime of 1921 to the two sonatas of 1938 and 1942, together with the four-hand version of the symphony Mathis der Maler. It is played by the duo of Andreas Grau and Götz Schumacher, and received the Crescendo award ("excellent").

For Hindemith, music-making meant performing and interpreting as much as composing. He recalled that his father opposed his composing "in every way" as a useless occupation, "but this only made me work harder". Grau, born in 1965, and Schumacher, born in 1966, are German pianists who had played as a duo for over fifteen years when this disc was made. They won the Prize of the German Music Council and Jeunesses Musicales in 1989, the Bellini Competition in 1991 and the Schubert Competition in Graz in 1992. Their recordings were singled out by Le Monde de la musique and Diapason. For Wergo they had already recorded Stockhausen's Mantra.

The Sinfonie "Mathis der Maler" (1933-34) opens the programme at twenty-seven minutes, in its three panels: "Engelkonzert", "Grablegung" and "Versuchung des heiligen Antonius". Rag Time (wohltemperiert) of 1921, three and a half minutes long, carries the word "wohltemperiert", well-tempered, in its title. The Sonate für Klavier zu vier Händen (1938) has three movements. The Walzer "Drei wunderschöne Mädchen im Schwarzwald", op. 6, is a suite of eight waltzes, the last to be played "etwas sentimental". The Sonate für zwei Klaviere (1942) closes the disc in five movements: "Chimes", a fast Allegro, a slow Canon, a Recitative and a closing Fugue.

The programme moves between a dance suite, a ragtime and strict counterpoint, from the canon and fugue of the two-piano sonata to the symphonic panels of Mathis. It bears out the label's point that for Hindemith performing and composing belonged together from the start.

CD, Wergo WER 6633 2, released in 1999 in the Edition Paul Hindemith, total time 77'57".