Four Hands, Two Sonatas

What it is about

Four Hands, Two Sonatas (포핸즈, “four hands” — the piano term for two players at one instrument) is a tvN Saturday–Sunday drama that premiered on 29 August 2026 at 9:10 p.m. KST and streams globally on Netflix from the same date. The Korea Economic Daily reported the series is scheduled for 12 episodes.

It is written by Shin Yi-won (Green Mothers’ Club) and directed by Park Hyun-seok (Uncontrollably Fond, Stranger 2), and produced by Studio Dragon, Studio N and Namoo Actors. It is set at Korea Arts High School, a school for music prodigies. Kang Bi-o (Song Kang) is an elite pianist from an aristocratic family who has won competitions since childhood; Choi Jeong-yo (Lee Jun-young) is a self-taught transfer student who gave the piano up to look after his father and takes it up again after hearing Bi-o play. Jang Gyu-ri plays Hong Jae-in, a violist who listens to them both. The story runs from the characters’ school days at seventeen to their lives as professional pianists at twenty-seven.

The score is part of the casting: Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 8 stands for Jeong-yo, Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 is Bi-o’s signature piece, and Saint-Saëns’ ‘Danse Macabre’ appears in the teasers and was performed four hands at a preview concert at the Seoul Arts Center on 22 August 2026 by pianists Park Ju-young and Lee Min-sung, the drama’s music director and playing doubles.

What it has done on air

The ratings climbed as the run went on. 텐아시아 gave episodes one to six as 3.4%, 5.9%, 4.4%, 5.8%, 4.2% and 7.3%, and noted that the sixth was a series high, 3.1 percentage points above the episode before it. 스타뉴스 reported that episode eight, broadcast on 20 September, took a nationwide average of 7.9% with a peak of 9% — another series high, and first across all channels in its slot, terrestrial broadcasters included. In the Seoul metropolitan area the same episode averaged 7.5% with a peak of 8.8%. All figures are Nielsen Korea’s.

For buzz, 텐아시아 cited Good Data Corporation’s Funddex index for the second week of September: the drama was first in the combined TV and OTT drama section with a 7.38% share, its third consecutive week at the top, and among cast members Lee Jun-young was first with 3.95% and Song Kang second with 3.66%.

Streaming on Netflix alongside the tvN broadcast, Four Hands, Two Sonatas has been on Netflix’s weekly non-English TV top 10 for three weeks as of 23 September: number five with 2 million views in the week to 6 September, seventh with 1.5 million in the week to 13 September, and tenth with 1.4 million in the week to 20 September.

Where to watch

Four Hands, Two Sonatas airs on tvN in Korea on Saturdays and Sundays and streams on Netflix worldwide. The teasers, character videos and a replay of the 25 August 2026 press conference are on tvN’s programme page and the tvN DRAMA YouTube channel.