Other Minds Presents:
Music for Two Pianos: A Benefit Concert for Other Minds, (Oct. 11, 2007)

On October 11, 2007, Other Minds presented a concert of music for two pianos, featuring works by Philip Glass, Balduin Sulzer, Adam Fong, Chen Yi, as well as an arrangement of J. S. Bach by György Kurtág. All the pieces were performed by Dennis Russell Davies and Maki Namekawa in the Herbst Theater in San Francisco. First on the program was “Six Scenes from Les Enfants Terribles” by Philip Glass. This work was originally composed in 1996 as part of a trilogy of operas based on three films by Jean Cocteau. It has since been arranged for two pianos by Davies and Namekawa. This was followed by Balduin Sulzer’s “Dialogue for Two Pianos”, a recent work (2007), that was composed specifically for this concerts two performers. It is a three-part tonal work which explores all the keyboard registers with pungent dissonances and virtuosic outbursts framing elegant melodic passages in a veritable discussion between the pianos. The next work, “Sunlight”, by Adam Fong, utilizes repeated figures to portray the “motion” of the sun in a day, as felt through heat and light on earth. The score gives performers a map of the piece, with guidelines for pitch, dynamics, and tempi. However, detailed movements are left to the performer’s discretion, leading to unpredictable harmonic interplay between the two pianos. “Sunlight” is one of a group of four pieces titled “Elementary Studies” all of which employ some form of indeterminacy inspired by the natural behavior of elemental forces.

After an intermission the concert resumed with György Kurtág’s arrangement of three works by J. S. Bach, including “O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig”, in which Kurtág’s artful transcription uses double octaves to great effect, thus expanding the color of the instruments while at the same time illuminating the form of Bach’s chorale. The final work of this extraordinary concert is Chen Yi’s “China West Suite”. Inspired by the folk music of Western China, Tibet and Mongolia, this four movement work, draws musical elements from the folk songs “Gadameilin” and “Pastoral” of the Meng people; “Ashima” of the Yi People; “Du Mu” and “Amaliehuo” of the Zang People, as well as “Dou Duo” and the Lusheng ensemble music of the Miao People. [from program notes by Dennis Russell Davies, Adam Fong, & Chen Yi]