Toccata for Two Pianos (Tailleferre)

The Toccata for Two Pianos is a work by Germaine Tailleferre, written in 1957 for the American two-piano team Gold and Fizdale, to whom it is dedicated.

The work is composed of two motives: a rapid passage of widely spaced intervals which alternates between the two pianos and a bi-tonal "taxi"-like motive which enters in a cyclical passage.

After a slower passage using irregular time signatures and "Stravinskian" polytonality, the initial material is presented in a fugato, which brings the work to a brisk close.

In Georges Hacquard's catalog of Tailleferre's works, there is an orchestration by French composer Désiré Dondeyne listed as being "inserted into the orchestral score of 'La nouvelle Cythère',[1] but this orchestration was never reallzed.

[2] It is difficult, given the pianistic nature of this work, to imagine a version for any other instrumentation.