John and Richard Contiguglia were twin brothers who played piano together as a duo. John passed away March 28 in New York City. He was 87. (Post-Standard File Photo)
With his twin brother, Richard, Contiguglia made a musical odyssey, which took the duo from Central New York to concerts at major symphony orchestras across Europe and the United States.
According to the brothers’ website, the brothers played at the Cleveland Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Atlanta Symphony, the National Symphony, the Toronto Symphony, the Boston Pops, the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra.
Richard and John Contiguglia (l-r) start their performance at the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Auburn in 2005. (Stephen D. Cannerelli photo)
They have been heard, both in recital and with orchestra, in numerous prestigious venues, including New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, Washington’s Kennedy Center, Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall and Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw.
But nothing meant more to them than the chance to play in their hometown of Auburn, New York.
“It means so much to us to return to Auburn and play for people we knew years ago and grew up with,” Contiguglia told The Post-Standard in 1996. “Richard and I consider Auburn and Syracuse our home – our real home – and it is still our favorite place to perform.”
To write about John is to write about Richard.
“Richard has John’s ears. John has Richard’s ears,” The Post-Standard’s Dave Tobin wrote in Stars Magazine in 1998.
“Richard and John Contiguglia, you see, are musical twins, with identical genetics, identical careers, nearly identical tastes. For 61 years, from their mother’s womb to Carnegie Hall, they have been keeping time with each other, becoming each other’s best and toughest musical critic.”
The pair was born on April 13, 1937, in Auburn, the second set of twins born to their parents Anthony and Ida. John was older by 15 minutes.
They began learning the piano at age five and were performing publicly a year later.
One of their first performances in Syracuse was on March 10, 1950, at Central High School’s auditorium. They were to give a “short program” that night in support of the Rochester Grand Opera Company and soprano Claudia Pinza.
John and Richard Contiguglia give instructions at Wells College to Sarah Sprickland, 19, of Union Springs, in 1996. (Ellen Blalock photo)
“Richard and John Contiguglia, 12, made such a hit with their duo-piano selections that they returned by request to the stage to repeat the Mozart ‘Marriage of Figaro’ excerpts,” the Herald-Journal reported. “As an encore these talented and earnest pianists played ‘Trepek’ from Tchaikovsky’s ‘Nutcracker Suite.’”
The brothers made news off the stage when they graduated from Auburn’s East High School with nearly identical final grades in 1955. John was declared valedictorian with 99.06 grade average, just ahead of Richard’s 99.00.
The pair pulled off the same achievement at Yale University, with each brother graduating summa cum laude with identical grade-point averages – even though they pursued different paths of study.
(John earned a bachelor’s degree in music while taking electives in chemistry.)
There was a question of who would receive the Seymour Prize for highest average at graduation.
“The only way to separate our grade-point averages was to go all the way to the fourth decimal place,” John told the Post-Standard in 1996. “The fellows at the college decided to call it equal and pronounced the award a tie.”
The twins stayed at Yale for their master’s degrees, again graduating with honors, and in 1962 set off for England, where the idea of collaborating as a duo-pianist team began to take shape.
“We never actually planned things… (they) just sort of happened,” John once said.
In London, they studied with the great British pianist Dame Myra Hess, who among other things nurtured them through the piano-four-hands works of Franz Schubert. Hess encouraged the brothers to “forge a career making audiences aware of this beautiful but neglected body of music literature.”
The next year, the brothers booked their first international tour, beginning in Amsterdam.
A critic with the London Daily Telegraph described their playing as setting “a new standard for this intimate form of music-making.”
“We received an overwhelming response,” John said years later. “They (the audience) went absolutely wild, and the reviews, all of them, were full of superlatives – an absolutely incredible response.”
According to Post-Standard archives, they did another European tour in 1964.
Their 1971 recording of Franz Liszt’s two-piano transcription of the Finale of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was a best seller in the United States and Japan – making Billboard magazine’s Top 10 and earning a “Grand Prix” award from the Liszt Society in Budapest.
A reviewer in London Records and Recording magazine wrote: “With this recording, they must surely rank as one of the world’s most formidable duo teams. In some respects, I have never heard better and am frankly dumbfounded by what they have achieved.”
The brothers would record more than a dozen albums together and formed their own recording company, Gemini CD Classics.
“Being a duo is a particularly demanding profession,” John said in 1998. “Not only does it mean having to do something very well by yourself, but having to practice with someone, to convince each other of what we want to do. It’s a constant give-and-take, constant argument, constant refinement.”
According to the Auburn Citizen, John Contiguglia is survived by Richard, his sister Eda Holt and several nieces and nephews.
He was predeceased by his parents, Anthony and Ida Contiguglia; his sister Lilliana C. King; his twin brothers Robert A. Contiguglia and Louis P. Contiguglia; and his brother William Contiguglia.