Music and Time Annotation << Back The life of the piano duet in the twentieth century: the main features of the genre V.O. Petrov This article discusses the main genre features of one of the leading genres of the twentieth century – the piano duo. Its evolution is traced in relation to the development of the genre in previous centuries, the most significant works are analyzed, conclusions are drawn about its new dialogical essence. eighteenth-century piano duo is a phenomenon that realizes in a person his own abilities to play chamber music in a home environment, which manifests itself both externally and internally (musically), in excessive simplification. The piano duet of the twentieth century is marked by the individualization of composer, performing and listening approaches to the genre, where most of the works or performing interpretations are phenomena unique and not amenable to any systematics. In addition, the semantic-stylistic thesaurus of the duet, which existed in the eighteenth century, is completely replaced by another, characteristic of modern times. Different content, other forms of embodiment of duet compositions and a different musical language specific to the genre of the twentieth century have transformed its semantic-stylistic essence. Keywords: musical genre, piano duet, twentieth century, structure of the musical genre, evolution of the genre. Pp. 03-09.