Four Hands, Two Sonatas: What to Know Before 29 August

What happened

Four Hands, Two Sonatas (포핸즈) premieres on tvN on Saturday 29 August 2026 at 9:10 p.m. KST, taking over the channel’s Saturday–Sunday slot from Spooky in Love, and Netflix announced on 16 July that it streams the series globally from the same date. The Korea Economic Daily reported the drama is scheduled for 12 episodes. Written by Shin Yi-won (Green Mothers’ Club) and directed by Park Hyun-seok (Uncontrollably Fond, Stranger 2), it is produced by Studio Dragon, Studio N and Namoo Actors. The setting is Korea Arts High School, a school for music prodigies, and the story follows two pianists, Kang Bi-o (Song Kang) and Choi Jeong-yo (Lee Jun-young), from seventeen to twenty-seven.

The two are written as opposites. Bi-o comes from an aristocratic family, has swept competition first prizes since childhood and, per Money Today, practises ten hours a day to keep his place at the top; only his grandfather Kang Seung-un refuses to acknowledge him. Jeong-yo had an unusual feel for the piano as a child but put it aside after losing his mother early and caring for his father alone; hearing Bi-o play by chance makes him want to be a pianist again, and he transfers into Bi-o’s class. tvN’s episode-one preview has the two meet when Bi-o goes back for a score he left in a waiting room and finds Jeong-yo playing from it. Jang Gyu-ri plays Hong Jae-in, a violist who listens to them both, and all three actors play their characters at both ages.

The production press conference was held online on 25 August with Song Kang, Lee Jun-young, Jang Gyu-ri and Park Hyun-seok. Three weeks earlier, on 4 August, the ‘twenty-seven’ poster had shown Bi-o and Jeong-yo turning away from each other with cold looks, over the line ‘음이 맞닿는 순간, 공명하는 불협화음’ (the moment the notes touch, a resonating dissonance); the production said the key question of the drama is why the harmony that began at seventeen turns into discord at twenty-seven.

Why is it trending?

The timing puts both leads at a turning point. Song Kang’s agency announced his Army enlistment for 2 April 2024; he was discharged on 1 October 2025 and, according to JobPost, was already reviewing Four Hands two weeks later; edaily and Sports Kyunghyang both frame the drama as his first work since discharge. Lee Jun-young shot it in parallel with JTBC’s Reborn Rookie (신입사원 강회장), whose 5 July finale recorded a nationwide 13.6% (Nielsen Korea, paid households), the series’ high, and then entered the army training centre on 21 July 2026, a date Soompi reported the same day. He told the press conference that Four Hands was his last work before enlisting and that he had given it everything.

tvN has released the drama in stages. A teaser set in a 2016 practice room was tvN DRAMA’s first upload for the series, dated 30 June 2026 on YouTube’s own metadata; a ‘keyboard teaser’ on 16 July put the two at one piano before the music turned to “Danse Macabre”; the 4 August posters set up the ten-year gap; and on 23 August a teaser made of camcorder footage from the school music room showed Hong Jae-in filming the two during their school days. On 22 August the drama held a preview concert at the Music Plaza of the Seoul Arts Center, where pianists Park Ju-young and Lee Min-sung, the music director and the actors’ playing doubles, performed Saint-Saëns’ “Danse Macabre” four hands and singer Jaeyeon sang the OST “빛이 머무는 곡” for the first time.

Shin Yi-won told The Korea Economic Daily that the music had to play a second lead, so the selection took special care: the first movement of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 8 mirrors Jeong-yo, and Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 is Bi-o’s signature piece. Park Hyun-seok said at the press conference that no drama had combined classical music with a coming-of-age story before, and that placing unfamiliar pieces between the story beats was the hard part. Professional pianists doubled the playing, but Song Kang said he took lessons from several months before shooting and studied his teachers’ videos to copy their movements, and Lee Jun-young said that, short of time, he memorised whole pieces and listened to classical music on his days off. Song Kang also said he shook with nerves at his first script reading since discharge, and that Lee Jun-young’s way of receiving his lines put him at ease from then on.

What you need to know

• Four Hands, Two Sonatas premieres on tvN on Saturday 29 August 2026 at 9:10 p.m. KST as a Saturday–Sunday drama, and streams globally on Netflix from the same date; Netflix’s title page lists Song Kang, Lee Jun-young and Jang Gyu-ri as the leads.
• It is written by Shin Yi-won, directed by Park Hyun-seok and produced by Studio Dragon, Studio N and Namoo Actors.
• The Korea Economic Daily reported the drama is scheduled for a total of 12 episodes.
• Song Kang plays Kang Bi-o, an elite pianist who practises ten hours a day; Lee Jun-young plays Choi Jeong-yo, a self-taught transfer student; Jang Gyu-ri plays violist Hong Jae-in.
• Song Kang’s enlistment was announced for 2 April 2024 and he was discharged on 1 October 2025; this is his first drama since.
• Lee Jun-young entered the army training centre on 21 July 2026, sixteen days after the Reborn Rookie finale drew a 13.6% nationwide rating; Four Hands is his last work before service.
• ‘Four hands’ (포핸즈) is the piano term for two players at one instrument, and the drama uses Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 8, Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and Saint-Saëns’ “Danse Macabre”.
• The teaser embedded below is the tvN DRAMA channel’s official upload, dated 30 June 2026 on YouTube’s own uploadDate metadata; the 25 August press conference is available in full on tvN’s programme page.