Chick Corea spent the 1980s honing his craft as a soloist and in duets with other world-leading pianists. The Munich Summer Piano Festival was often the home of these shows, having hosted Chick in two solo performances at the beginning of the decade, as well as many duo sessions. Here, in 1982, we see him unite with Nicolas Economou, the Cypriot composer and pianist who started his career by winning the 1969 Tchaikovsky competition aged only 16.
Together, they embark on a whimsical melodic journey that acts as both a spectacle and a workshop. Songs For Children is the title of the show, coming two years before the release of Chick's 1984 album, Children's Songs, which Chick described as aiming "to convey simplicity as beauty, as represented in the Spirit of a child." He plays the short pieces in the concert's second part, followed by Economou's sister project, Children's Studies, which takes the same format. The concert ends, inevitably, with a duet for two pianos. Both pianists have now sadly passed and this film offers a window into a time where they were together, locked in sparkling conversation.
