Circles for Four Hands

After the timbral exploration of disintegrating clusters in the low range of both pianos which opens the piece, the main theme emerges. A drone-note slowly expands in intervalic space, reaching a climax before collapsing in upon itself. The quarter-note triplet motive, which saturates the reminder of the piece, is also revealed in this introduction, and gains momentum as this rhythmic idea traverses the range of the pianos into the stratosphere. What follows is a playful interaction of two simple polyrhythms: two-against three and three-against-four. Intermittently the ominous opening material collides against these polyrhythms. In the largest sense, the piece is a simple A-B-A form, and these circular qualities to the piece emerge in both large and small scale forms, in rhythmic contexts, and in thematic pitch material.