Minimal Piano Collection, Volume X-XX

The Minimal Piano Collection is a project I started in 1997, collecting piano music for multiple pianos that were mainly
created in or after the period of Minimal Music. I found out that this music has many different influences and has
challenged many composers to use principals and structures that were developed in the Minimalism Era. From many
countries I got music, got to know composers who were willing to share their compositions and experiences with this
kind of music. This collection is just a minor selection of what one could do, but one has to make choices. As a follow
up on the Minimal Piano Collection for one piano (BC 8551). This collection ended with the Riley’s monument “In C”.
Many of the composers on this new 11 Cd box have stated that this particular piece was a starting point for them to
compose on a new way, exploring the ways that were created, the spaces between the notes, the emptiness.

In this box, I focused on works from two up to six grand pianos presenting also many teacher-pupil relations; Morton
Feldman was the teacher of Julius Eastman, Kyle Gann and Tom Johnson. Louis Andriessen was the principal
teacher of Joep Franssens. According to Robert Fink (Repeating Ourselves) there is a historical link between early
postmodernist Euro-American social changes, manifested especially in the mass media and advertising, on the one
hand, and the emergence of minimalist music, on the other. Also Minimalism has been a turning point in paintings as
well. In many ways this is an interesting category of music.

In the last 3 years I have been working on this new collection, spending hours of research, practicing hours, recording
many days, spending hours in the studio making the right choices. The result is a new collection with many aspects of
Minimalism for two and more pianos. At first it was my idea to make combination of works with had a connecting link,
but I would end up using at least the space of 13 Cd’s! In order to keep the box compact I had to select on duration,
rather then style, number of pianos and character.

In the meantime I got more and more composers sending me new music, that I easily can fill another Minimal
Collection with, infact I already recorded more then this box can store. My gratitude goes to Brilliant Classics who has
given me the chance to publish a major part of my journey into Minimal Music and share it with you. Enjoy the music
and let the journey begin with 83 pieces, 854 minutes, including a few first recordings!

Jeroen van Veen, April 2010

Minimal Piano Collection, Volume X

Canto Ostinato (1976-1979)

The Canto Ostinato is not only Ten Holt's most-performed work, outside as well as inside Holland, it is a genuinely
popular piece. Indeed, it is the most-popular piece of Dutch contemporary music ever, and recordings of it have sold
more than those of any other piece of classical music in Holland. There are currently six differing dispositions of the
music available in recording, for four pianos (several recordings), for two pianos (several recordings), for two pianos
and two marimbas, for one piano, for organ, and for harp. The duration of each of these performances varies
considerably, none lasts less than about an hour and some over two, though, oddly, ten Holt’s own reckoning is about
thirty minutes. My own encounter with Canto Ostinato has been through the young Dutch pianist and composer,
Jeroen van Veen, probably the leading exponent of minimalism in Holland today. He is a genial, energetic, and
articulate advocate of ten Holt’s music and has performed his pieces from Miami, to Calgary, to Novosibirsk and most
places in between, and in many spaces and instrumental combinations. One aspect of this music that particularly
attracts him is its portability. By this he means that it can be performed almost anywhere one can put multiple pianos
and people. Indeed, bringing music to the people instead of the other way around is one of his main goals as a
musician. He and his partner, Sandra van Veen, have performed Canto Ostinato in concert halls and in a tent (in the
pouring rain, no less) made for that purpose by the artist Dré Wapenaar. Last November, together with three other
pianists, they performed a version for five grand pianos in the main waiting hall of the Utrecht Railway Station. It will
be performed this year in Amsterdam’s Organ Museum on two pianos and two organs. Though ten Holt says that his
primary interest is in Time—“If there would be no Time, there would be no music.”—van Veen has shown that
spatiality is a key element in the success of ten Holt’s pieces and, especially, of Canto Ostinato. I experienced this
spatiality on a cold day late last December in the immense entrance hall to De Doelen, the main concert venue of
Rotterdam. There, van Veen had assembled five pianos and twelve pianists, all between the ages, I would guess, of
fourteen and eighteen, to do a short version of Canto Ostinato, about one hour’s worth. This meant skipping many of
the 106 sections of which the piece is constructed, which also meant deciding which ones to play and co-ordinating
the sectional shifts, beyond which each player could decide upon his or her own phrasing, emphasis, expression, and
volume, or, as van Veen puts it, “It’s more like being on a traffic-circle than at a corner with stop-lights where someone
else tells you when you must stop or go.” Three pianists at each of four keyboards who, among themselves, decided
when they would change-off playing (each played twice), took their cues from van Veen, and they were off. The
electronic keyboards they had to use were, frankly, a grotesque parody of what a piano sounds like, but the
youngsters were totally engaged in what they were doing. What was remarkable was that, though people were
wandering about the hall and food was being sold and consumed, three or four hundred, young and old, not just
parents and relatives, stood around, were attentive, and, through their listening, took part in what was being done.
The applause was long and deafening, not just just because the piece was attractive and the children played well, but
also because, for about an hour, a special community had been created of which they were also a part. The music
itself is simple, even tuneful. It was clear to me that the reaction was largely sensual rather than intellectual (apart
from the general appreciation of the fact that it was children performing it well). It is, after all, a very sensuous piece:
you don't have to know much about music to enjoy it. Part of the success in making such a community of performers
and listeners lies in the very theatricality of the Canto: it is, in its way, a very physical piece. Says van Veen, “When
people listen to the Canto, it is more like a ritual than a concert.” As he also pointed out, “The clarity of the Canto
Ostinato, only a 5/8 bar with a subdivision on 2 or 3, is part of the attraction. In addition, the piece evolves toward a
charming melody that most people seem to recognize, although its DNA is hidden in the whole structure.” However,
some of ten Holt’s other similar late pieces, Lemniscaat (Infinity-sign, 1982-83) or Meandres (1997), for example,
strike me as working at a different intellectual level. I do not at all mean by this to underestimate the amount of
intelligence it took to make the Canto, but in some way, the art of Canto Ostinato lies in the disguising of its art while
making its structure absolutely obvious. The movement to each of those sectional changes, which usually bring about
a key shift or some perceptible structural alteration, works on the listener in the same way as that great, brief, key
change toward the end of Ravel's Bolero (which, owing to its enormous popularity, and sensuality, may actually be the
real foundation piece of 20th-century minimalism). Modern? The question doesn’t even apply. Here is a serious piece
of contemporary music that reaches out to people across generations. This version has been praised by the
composer with the words: 'The best recording so far, and may overwrite all the existing ones'.
Alan Swanson, published in Fanfare Magazine, January 2010

www.canto-ostinato.com
Minimal Piano Collection, Volume XI

On this volume one can listen to a variety of techniques used in Minimal Music. The first piece by William Duckworth
(1943 US) was written in 1977 at the Bucknell University. The piece 'Forty Changes' is a two pages long instruction
for the players. Like Steve Reichs Piano Phase the two pianos start together and start shifting from each other. In
Reich the two pianos gradually start phasing, in Forty Changes piano one shifts by extending two beats from the last
pattern. In the process of the piece players are free to play the written variations.

Binary Images stems from the same period. The piece is build out of patterns, all repeated 4 times. The central tone,
the E flat, is played in different rhythms, different chords are build around the central key. The result is a journey of
nearly ten minutes in which the pulse never changes.

In Michael Parsons (1938 UK) Rhythm Studies for two pianos, both from 1971, the rhythmical structure does change
a lot. Again the two pianos play the same material but on a different beat. Since each measure has a different time
signatures the piece itself evolves much more complex. There's only on rule; avoid playing in unison!

City Lines by Douwe Eisenga (1961 NL) was written in 2006 and was composed and inspired by hearing Tubular
Bells again after many years and Simeon ten Holt's Horizon. The result was this enchanting music, based on a Dutch
Folk Tune, evolving into a lovely, pianistic written piece of music.

Rhapsody in Red by Gabriel Jackson (1962 UK) derives its structure from a work by the great British artist Richard
Longone- Red Walk Bristol to Dawlish 1986. It is a list of objects seen on a walk from Bristol to Dawlish and the
distances along the walk that they were seen at. (The objects are all red, and the lettering is also in red.) Jackson has
taken this sequence of distances, and by a very simple process derived from them a sequence of durations,
producing one section of music for each stage of the walk. Each section is delineated by a change of key and new
musical material; the tempo is constant. Thus the piece reflects both the even pace of the walk, and its variety of
incident.
Minimal Piano Collection, Volume XII

Long Night for three pianos was an attempt to extend the looping technique of Terry Riley's In C into the
ambient/atmospheric area of Harold Budd and Brian Eno. I wrote the piece in grad school, gave it a trial run in 1980,
and then made some much-needed revisions. The premier of the final version was at my doctoral recital at
Northwestern, April 30, 1981. The piece was repeated on the New Music America festival at Chicago's Navy Pier on
July 8, 1982. The next performance was a quarter-century later on September 28, 2007 at Bucknell University, with
pianists Lois Svard, Megan Rowland, and Anja Wade. Long Night was easily the most successful of the pieces I wrote
at that time in which musicians played simultaneously at different tempos. The three tempos are approximately 90,
100, and 110, and each pianist loops various sections of music until a cue comes to move on. The piece is in seven
overlapping sections, changing key from C minor to A major to C# minor. The primary motive was stolen from a
Cluster and Eno record. The original, rather opaque program note made reference to Heidegger: Being and Time
established that just because moods, or existential states of mind, are fleeting and temporal does not mean that they
are ontologically less primordial than more permanent personal phenomena.... In classical music, diversity is thought
of as superficial and unity as underlying. Since Heidegger (and Cage), this worldview seems like wishful
thinking....And so on. The point was to write a smooth, seamless piece devoid of any of the classical unifying devices I
had learned in school. I had the idea that the pianos could be around the audience and the audience walking, lying, or
otherwise lounging in the middle. This hasn't yet been found practical. For this recording Jeroen van Veen
overdubbed himself, he first recorded piano one, and added a part each recording session.

For the Ostinato Festival in 2005 in Veldhoven, I arranged three out of the five Metamorphosis by Philip Glass. The
set starts with number two, for two pianos, and each new piece I added another piano, ending with four pianos. I didn’t
change any of the material, I only shifted the piece at some points one or two 16th notes. One of the principles of the
Minimalism is phasing. Sometimes I only changed the order of the notes for the other pianos. Piano one is always
playing the original version.

Les Chants Estivaux written in 2007 is a quadraphonic composition for 4 pianos. During the Dutch premiere the
audience could walk around in a special installation, build by O+A Architects. The spacial character of the piece fits
perfect to a setting that was common to the Minimal Music Performances in the 1980s.

In Ellis Island (1981), the music of the two pianos makes one stream or overall texture. Energy passes back and forth
between the two pianists in a floating mood. The pianos are used to create an atmosphere like clear water, flowing,
forgetting time and presence.
Minimal Piano Collection, Volume XIII

One day, somewhere in the 1950s, John Cage and Morton Feldman (1926-1987) were driving home from a concert.
Feldman was asleep, as always. Out of the blue he woke up, said: 'Now that things are so simple, there's so much to
do,' and dozed off again. Maybe Feldman unconsciously formulated the most typical characterization of his own
music. On first hearing - and sight - it has so few ingredients, anyone could have thought it up. But as Cage said: 'Of
course they could, but they don't.' The two composers had met in 1949. Cage was 37 years old, Feldman 24. It was
'the beginning of everything in my life,' he told Sonus magazine, 'Up until then, everything was red light.' Standstill.
Stasis. The green light switched on mostly because of Cage's connections with the art world, especially abstract-
expressionists. He talked about painting more than about music, and it was the works and ideas of Mark Rothko,
Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline that influenced Feldman heavily in his writing, in his search for sounds. Philip
Guston, who became Feldmans best friend, taught him to stop asking questions, Feldman said in a lecture: 'Stop
worrying whether you sit here or you walk out, whether someone wants to play it or they don't want to play it, what this
one would think... I just didn't want to start with any preconception of what I was supposed to be doing.' As a result
Feldmans work is not about storytelling, not about drama, or tension, not even about ideas, but about mood. It
consists of audible images. Like in paintings, his music is one flat plane with lots of subtle varieties on it, lots of
differences in tone and colour. 'Music is not painting, but it can learn from this more perceptive temperament that
waits and observes the inherent mystery of its materials, as opposed to the composer's vested interest in his craft.'
Feldman wanted his music to be about his music. Not about other music, about other art forms or about history. To
be able to do that, he worked with 'whatever notation I felt the work called for'. During part of the fifties that was graph
notation, in which he only indicated the register in which each instrument plays. The compositions are divided in
sections which have an indicated length, but the musician can choose himself how many notes he plays within these
sections. The overall sound is introspective. The series of Intermissions for example (which can be played on one or
two pianos, Intermission VI was written in 1953) is more about silence than about sound, or, to put it more precisely:
it's about how sound and silence define each other. The sometimes nearly audible moment of attack - Feldmans most
characteristic direction being 'Very slow. Soft as possible' - provides a tension which normally is mostly found in bold
dynamics and loudness. As Cage said, Feldman was 'getting rid of glue'. While most composers felt the need to fill the
gap between notes and sounds, Feldman gave as much room as possible for pensiveness, for silence. In Two pianos
and Piece for four pianos (both from 1957) Feldman offers one and the same part to several performers, who are
invited tot play 'a series of reverberations from an identical sound source'. Both the idea of attack and that of
emptiness in between sounds are pulled to another level in the pieces Marcel Bergmann and Jeroen van Veen
composed in reaction to Feldman. By using only the strings of the piano, which sound more physical than the keys,
and have a less controllable resonance, they inevitably fill the gaps between the notes, without in fact filling them
themselves. It is just that which makes the listener think even more about the concept of freedom, of simplicity, and
about how much more there is to do.
Vrouwkje Tuinman © 2010
Minimal Piano Collection, Volume XIV

Hallelujah Junction was written at the request of Grant Gershon and Gloria Cheng, two musicians with whom I have
had a long and fruitful history. When they asked me to compose a "short" piece for a special concert at the Getty
Museum in 1998 I simply could not decline. Hallelujah Junction is a tiny truck stop on Route 49 on the Nevada-
California border, not far from where I have a small mountain cabin. One can only speculate on its beginnings in the
era of prospectors and Gold Rush speculators (although a recent visit revealed that cappuccino is now available
there). Here we have a case of a great title looking for a piece. So now the piece finally exists: the 'junction' being the
interlocking style of two-piano writing which features short, highly rhythmicized motives bouncing back and forth
between the two pianos in tightly phased sequences. This is a technique I first used in the 1982 Grand Pianola Music
and later expanded in orchestral pieces. The "hallelujah" is for another Los Angeles friend: Ernest Fleischmann. Like
many composers, conductors, and performers, I have benefited immeasurably over the years by Ernest's friendship
and by his unflagging advocacy. As we all think back over the extraordinary tenure of his service as managing director
of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, "hallelujah" seems to be the only appropriate word. We all owe him a debt of deep
gratitude. Hallelujah Junction lasts approximately fifteen minutes and is in four parts, linked one to the other. The
first section begins with a short, exclamatory three-note figure which I think of as "-lelujah" (without the opening "Hal-
"). This energized, bright gesture grows in length and breadth and eventually gives way to a long, multifaceted
"groove" section. A second, more relaxed part is more reflective and is characterized by waves of triplet chord clusters
ascending out of the lowest ranges of the keyboard and cresting at their peak like breakers on a beach. A short
transitional passage uses tightly interlocking phase patterns to move the music into a more active ambiance and sets
up the final part. In this finale, the "hallelujah chorus" kicks in at full tilt. The ghost of Conlon Nancarrow goes head to
head with a Nevada cathouse pianola.
John Adams

Colin McPhee - Balinese Ceremonial Music

The Montreal born composer Colin McPhee(1900-1964) studied in Toronto, the United States and Paris. From 1931-
38, he spent a substantial amount of time in Bali where he closely studied the Balinese tradition of the gamelan (an
ensemble comprised of gongs, cymbals, drums, metallophones and flutes played by some 25 musicians). Much of his
compositional output was inspired by Balinese music – the three movements of the Balinese Ceremonial Music
(written in 1940) are transcriptions of 3 very distinct styles: Pemungkah is the overture to the shadow theatre play,
Gambangan is an adaptation of funeral music and Tabuh Telu is a solemn work played in honour of the gods during
temple ceremonies. The remaining three pieces haven’t been published. However, there is a recorded version of
Rebong- with the composer and Benjamin Britten at the pianos- that provided an excellent reference regarding tempo,
character and the overall structure. In addition, we adapted and arranged the other two selections from the existing
manuscripts.

Morning Train & Midnight Journey – two pieces for 2 pianos (2005)
Morning Train and Midnight Journey explore a variety of musical possibilities and textures for this ensemble, evoking
the atmosphere and physical motions of train rides. The piece starts in a motorical, toccata- like vein with continuous
sixteenth note patterns in both instruments. The sort of serene atmosphere of the opening gets infused with some
tension when the engine movements of the imaginary train turn into a heavier mode. After a sudden change of key,
rhythm and sonority, the original drive slows down into a contrasting, meditative and lyrical section. The speed is now
reduced to a much slower pace and pensive chords and melodies evolve over a sonorous bass, while still maintaining
the motorical ostinato- idea (although transformed) in the middle layers of both instruments. While remaining in the
same atmosphere, another time change introduces the coda with a new kind of ostinato pattern in piano 1. The calm
serenity fades into the distance, with a last echo of the train, already far away.

Midnight Journey follows a different narrative – in a mysterious atmosphere, the whistle of a train echoes through the
night. Ostinato patterns in both pianos emphasize the motion of the wheels and are building up to a climax, ending the
first section with martellato chords, fff –the train signal of the beginning now appearing again with maximum force.
A calm and lyrical middle section changes the musical parameters and introduces long, quasi-minimalistic lines with
interwoven melodic fragments in a dialogue between the 2 instruments. Things soon shift to a faster gear with the
tempo and meter changes, which the last section introduces. The atmosphere of the beginning is evoked again, but
the train has picked up some speed on its nightly journey and is racing in 12/8 meter towards its destination. Horn like
motives and rhythmic patterns reminiscent of a tarantella build up to a big climax, which ends the piece in a joyful and
grandiose manner. Both pieces have been published as part of the Canadian National Conservatory’s series Making
Tracks- An Expedition in Canadian Piano Music.
Incessant Bells (2007)
Incessant Bells was written for a CBC OnStage concert and radio broadcast at the Glenn Gould Studio, Toronto, in
early 2007. As in many of my other pieces for 2 pianos, working with- and developing- patterns is an important feature
here. It reflects my fascination with the Indonesian-particularly the Balinese- Gamelan-music, which had a profound
impact on the originators of musical minimalism. Each of the 3 main sections features a different kind of pentatonic
scale as a melodic and harmonic source material. The opening section typifies minimalist, complementing patterns in
both instruments until the initial clarity gets more and more diffused through sustained bell- like sounds.
The ostinato- patterns from the beginning fade away and are replaced by a single, insisting note, which provides the
pulse all the way through the calmer middle section. Slowly and softly, a different kind of pattern emerges and creates
more and more interwoven textures in both instruments. Speed and dynamics build gradually towards the end of the
piece with various carillon-like bells.

Boogie Mania (2009)

I composed the original version of Boogie Mania in 2002 and, in late 2008, finally extended the piece as had been my
intention for several years. It owes its’ existence to the influence of various musical sources and experiences, among
them a performance of pianists Friedrich Gulda and Joe Zawinul playing a boogie on 2 pianos, the Hanon piano-
exercises and some works by John Adams and Frederic Rzewski. A strictly diatonic ostinato scale-pattern emerges
“out of the mist” and gets increasingly infused with chromaticism, thus generating a variety of different scales as a
result. In this building process, both instruments are engaged in a canon-and dialogue-like fashion. After a first build-
up, the music evolves into a boogie-woogie. Subsequently, the piece changes gears as different patterns occur:
towards the end, the boogie becomes increasingly frenzied and frantic and ultimately ‘derails’.
Marcel Bergmann © 2010

Carlos Micháns - "JOY" (A Minimal Overture) - Original orchestral version: 1987 - Three-piano version : 2007. "JOY"
is entirely based on the following seven notes: A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G#, that is, an ordinary A-Major scale. The tones are
arranged in ever changing figures, whether horizontal or vertical, suggesting 9th, 11th or 13th chords which are never
resolved nor lead to a closing A-Major situation, but to a fading, open ending instead. The piece is actually a series of
non-stop variations on the basic motive, changing rhythm and dynamics within a sustained tempo, the whole lasting
merely seven minutes. When arranging "JOY" for three pianos at the request of Jeroen van Veen, I did not intend to
modify or re-compose the original work in any way. Some details, however, had to be adapted for keyboard-playing,
which meant leaving out less relevant melodic lines or 'translating' the orchestral writing into a language more suitable
for the piano.
Carlos Micháns, 2007/10

Cloud Atlas is written 2008 for the production Cloud Atlas -together with pieces from five others composers- inspired
by the novel of David Mitchel. Cloud Atlas was premiered in 2008 In Middelburg (NL) and released on cd in 2009.
David Mitchell about Cloud Atlas: “Eisenga's composition is beautiful. It is joyous, transcendent, and makes me
homesick for a place I've never been”.
Minimal Piano Collection, Volume XV

The Piano Duos

In 1996 I wrote my first piano-duo ('The red Pyrus berries are ripe' for the occasion of TV presenter Paul Witteman's
50th anniversary) first performed by the brothers Maarten & Jeroen van Veen, not knowing how many piano duos
would follow in the years to come... I immediately liked the combination, much better than one piano. A summer-
weekend (I believe in the summer of 2002), I was visiting Tamara Rumiantsevs place in Veerle, Belgium. Late at
night, drinking some Bag-In-Box-wine, we were brainstorming... about the future... Tamara was looking for new
repertoire especially for piano duos. There was a desert of not much attractive repertoire, a lot of suspect 2nd hand
minimal, but not as cleverly written as Canto Ostinato by Simeon ten Holt, which is a masterpiece. I always liked Satie
a lot, who indeed was the first minimalistic composer pur sang. I was not so much thinking of writing minimal pieces, I
could never stand this endless going on of a wearisome drone in one key, I had more of a pop music-Satie attitude to
things. The pop-concept trying to capture what you had to say in a catchy 2'30 minute song appealed more to me. It
mostly consisted of a well-known cliché but then...slightly different, a matter of looking at things everybody was
looking at, but from a different perspective. This was the key to a new series of short poppy piano duos, of which I just
recently (march 2010) finished number 186: "The Monster Melons". A Serbian pianoduo (duo LP) recently had a lot
of success in their country with number 124: Rondo. It's a strange feeling to be well known in Serbia and just a hand
full of people in Holland know my piano duos. That's why it's great Tamara and Jeroen go first with a selection from
the first 40 'pop song-piano duos'.
Chiel Meijering, 2010

In its original form, "Für Alina" is barely two minutes in length, yet the marking in the score "Calm, exalted, listening
to one's inner self" encourages a treatment that takes a more liberal approach to duration. With the help from the
modern technology, I made an extended version Phasing on Pärt (2001), using different musical layers. The same
piece is repeated but has been reorganized; the dynamics as well as the panning has been changed from the different
layers. At some points you will hear eight grand pianos all positioned from a different angle. The piano sound is bell-
like, pellucid, almost crystalline, in the extended arcs of variation. There are effects created which remind to John
Cage and Morton Feldman.
Minimal Piano Collection, Volume XVI

Piano Phase is a piece of music written in 1967 by the minimalist composer Steve Reich for two pianos. It is his first
attempt at applying his "phasing" technique which he had previously used in the tape pieces It's ‘Gonna Rain’ (1965)
and ‘Come Out’ (1966) to live performance. Reich's phasing works generally have two identical lines of music, which
begin by playing synchronously, but slowly become out of phase with one another when one of them slightly speeds
up. Reich had previously applied this technique only to sounds recorded on magnetic tape, but experimenting in his
studio, he found it was possible for humans to replicate the effect. In Piano Phase, he has the two pianists begin by
playing a rapid twelve note melodic figure over and over again in unison (E4 F#4 B4 C#5 D5 F#4 E4 C#5 B4 F#4 D5
C#5). After a while, one of the pianists begins to play their part slightly faster than the other. When they are playing
the second note of the figure at the same time the other pianist is playing the first note, the two pianists play at the
same tempo again. They are therefore playing notes at exactly the same time, but they are not the same notes, as
they were at the start of the piece. The process is repeated, so that the second pianist plays the third note as the first
pianist is playing the first, then the fourth, and so on until the process has gone full circle, and the two pianists are
playing in perfect unison again. The second pianist then fades out, leaving the first playing the original 12 note
melody. They then seamlessly change to a similar melody made up of 8 notes. The second piano fades in again, only
this time playing a different 8 note melody at the same time. The phasing then begins again. After the full eight cycles
have gone through, the first pianist fades out, leaving one 8 note melody playing. After a few repetitions, the pianist
then takes out the first 4 notes of the melody and the first pianist fades in unison. They phase through the now four
cycles, and finish after returning in unison. The music is made up, therefore, of nothing more than the results of
applying the phasing process to the initial twelve-note melody - as such, it is a piece of process music.

Kevin Volans is a composer associated with the post-minimalist movement in contemporary composition. The works
of the late 1980s and early 1990s show a move away from the direct influence of African music towards a highly
personal sort of minimalism. Part of this may have been the influence of the American composer Morton Feldman,
who was a close friend; but the language of the compositions in this era crearly inspired such as the orchestral work
One Hundred Frames (1990) and the striking two-piano work Cicada (1994). The two pianos are always playing
together in an opposite motive; high-low for piano one, low-high for piano two. An almost timeless landscape is
created by the repeated fragments, sometimes an almost motorical and serene atmosphere. The title Cicada is taken
from a series of paintings by Jasper Johns, and has no bearing on the sound of the piece.

Six Pianos (1973) grew out of the idea I had to do a piece for all the pianos in a piano store*. The piece which
actually resulted is a bit more modest in scope since too many pianos (especially if they are large grands) can begin
to sound thick and unmanageable. Using six smaller grands made it possible to play the fast, rhythmically intricate
kind of music I am drawn to while at the same time allowing the players to be physically close together so as to hear
each other clearly. The piece begins with four pianists all playing the same eight-beat rhythmic pattern, but with
different notes. The other two pianists then begin in unison to gradually build up the exact pattern of one of the
pianists already playing by putting the notes of his fifth eighth-note on the seventh eighth- note of their measure, then
his first on their third, and so on until they have constructed the same pattern with the same notes, but two eighth-
notes out of phase. This is the same process of substituting beats for rests as appears for the first time in
DRUMMING, but here, instead of the process happening by itself, it happens against another performer (or
performers) already playing that pattern in another rhythmic position. The end result is that of a pattern payed against
itself but one or more beats out of phase' Though this result is similar to many older pieces of mine, the process of
arriving at that result is new. lnstead of slow shifts of phase, there is a percussive build up of beats in place of rests.
The use of the pianos here is more like sets of tuned drums. When these phase relationships have been fully
constructed, one or two other pianists then double some of the many melodic Patterns resulting from this four or five
piano relationship. By gradually increasing the volume of these resulting patterns they bring them to the surface of the
music, and by gradually fading out enable the listener to hear these patterns, and hopefully many others, pre-existing
in the ongoing four or live piano relationship. The decisions as to which resulting patterns were most musical, and
what their order would be, were made by James Preiss, Steve Chambers and myself during rehearsals. This process
of rhythmic construction followed by doubling the resulting patterns is then continued in three sections marked off by
changes in mode, key, and gradually higher position on the keyboard, the first being in D major, the second in E
dorian, and the third in B natural minor. Steve Reich

Never Odd or Even was commissioned by the six piano ensemble Piano Circus in 1995 and first performed at
Symphony Hall in Birmingham and the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, In writing the piece I wanted to apply the
strictest musical procedures to apparently inconsequential material in order to achieve a blend of great rigour and
extreme lightness. As the title implies NEVER ODD OR EVEN is a palindrome (something which is the same
backwards as it is forwards) or, to put it more accurately, a series of musical palindromes. Pianos 2 &5 share a chord
sequence which contains a series of harmonic palindromes which are clearly audible. 1&4 have a series of decorative
rhythmic palindromes in the upper register of the keyboards. These rhythmic palindromes also operate as strict
canons. Finally 3&6 each have a simple legato line in octaves in the lower register making a single melodic (and
rhythmic) palindrome. This palindrome is also heard in canon. All these palindromes, being of different lengths, are
phased so that the material is always heard in new relationships. The title, itself a palindrome, though chosen
principally for its imaginative associations and the fact that it is itself a palindrome suggests also to me the
predominantly melodious nature of the piece and the fact that Pianos 2&5, who provide the core material for the
piece, play always either in straight syncopation or using multiple rhythms - 3 against 2, 4 against 6, 5 against 4, 9
against 8 etc. Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas!
John Metcalf, 2010

th
Sixteen takes its numerical name from the continuous use of semiquavers, or 16 notes, throughout the piece. It is
based on music I wrote for a short film, and the first performance of the version on this CD was given by Piano Circus.
It falls into two distinct sections of roughly equal length, the first making use of a repeated pattern, CFGCFGFG,
harmonised and accented in different ways, and the second using this pattern as an accompanying figure to a
sustained melody in the upper register, set against a syncopated bass line. In writing this piece for 6 pianos, I tried to
keep the texture clean and precise, avoiding use of the sustaining pedal, and, as far as possible, keeping the range of
each player distinct from each other for maximum clarity. The final result is a piece that is more percussive than
pianistic in content.
Tim Seddon
Minimal Piano Collection, Volume XVII

Music for the Eye. ls it possible to portray some one's face in musical stave's and notes? And would it even be
possible to compose playable music for this purpose? What would such a portrait look like? Answering these
questions took Jurriaan Andriessen five years of labour. The initial purpose of this enterprise was to add a portrait in
music to a series of oval lithographed portraits of increasing complexity, already created by him. The series now
consists of six works of art. One peculiarity links these works: they can be viewed from close quarters or from greater
distance. What you see from close upon is altogether different from what you see from a distance. This technique is
known as double-focus imaging. The series of lithographs encompasses inter alia a portrait in lettering. This one is
composed of small characters, calligraphed with thick and thin lines when viewed in detail. Next there is the 'Portrait of
Mieneke', composed of crowded designs which, when viewed from some distance, dissolve into grey tones; designs
of such variety that no computer could possibly render a portrait this way in those days. We can observe this same
special effect in the 'PORTRAIT of HEDWIG', completed in 1983. This portrait is composed of music notes and
stave's -all playable and meaningful- crowded to such an extent that at a distance it all dissolves into grey tones. We
then see only the cumulative effect of the constituent symbols which, as pixels in a grid, produce Hedwig's portrait.
The music text which constitutes the Portrait of Hedwig is divided into 54 short compositions. Each composition tells a
different story. The opening compositions are sometimes reminiscent of older musical styles. Reaching further into the
portrait the style becomes more and more the composer's own, coined by Jurriaan Andriessen as 'the Eldorian Style'
(for instance numbers 48 or 52 (canons 4 and 7): compositions evolving into a musical form with a metre related to the
boogie-woogie, without losing their canonic or fugal qualities). The 12 canons represent a concluding group of
compositions. Instrumentation of the canons is not given in the source. They may be performed on two pianos,
harpsichords, organs, electronic keyboards or mixed combinations of keyboard instruments. The twelve canonic lines
from the portrait are all conceived as 'canones infinites', i.e. never-ending canons.

4 Mains by Wim Mertens is a short piece for piano four hands or two pianos in A minor showing variations on a theme
with an ostinato bas. The powerful and drone like left hand from the 2nd piano keeps going on the whole piece while
the 1st piano is playing the melody in octaves, and filling in the rhythmical patterns.

The Hague Hacking (Haags Hakkûh) was written in 2003 by Louis Andriessen and was commissioned by the
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven with financial support by the Fonds voor de Scheppende Toonkunst. The relatively
short piece starts with a fast section. The second part has only loud chords, alternating between the pianos and
making the lines. An efficient and demanding piece for two pianos.

Hymn to a Great City was written in 1984/2000 for Mirjam and William Miesse. The piece shows us the typical style
of Arvo Pärt. Widely spaced chords are filled in with eight notes by the second piano. This music is pure and clear as
water from a creek. Remarkable in this piece is the choice of key, Pärt uses C sharp Major (7 sharps) as instead of
the easier to read D flat Major (5 flats).

Views from a Dutch train was written in 1992 for the Classical Accordion Duo (James Crabb and Geir Draugsvoll ),
with financial support of the Fonds voor de Scheppende Toonkunst. When you travel through Holland by train - a
small, densily populated country - you will see that literally every square meter is brought into use: rectangular pieces
of land divided by straight ditches, canals and dikes, long rows of trees and narrow parcels of green, expanding
concrete districts and industrial parks, towns and villages. The composition process resembles the process of bringing
waste land under cultivation. ln Views from a Dutch train, repetition and variation of simple musical material passes by
like the Dutch landscape as seen from a train. Both accordions describe the panorama of the streamlined Dutch
landscape from the left and right train windows.
Jacob ter Veldhuis
Minimal Piano Collection, Volume XVIII

Both pieces for four pianos by Graham Fitkin on this Cd were written in 2004. White and Totti are both very
rhythmical pieces, short and powerful compositions that will get you into the right mood! The shifts and changes in the
rhythm never give this music a dull moment. Tension from the beginning until the end.

Voicings was written in 1984 for Radio Bremen and the Pro Musica Nova Festival in May 1984. Voicings for fours
pianos is based on a texture of 58 notes, lasting 5 beats. The formation, constructed according to principles used by
weavers, can be heard as formation of rising thirds, falling seconds, or falling fourths, or perceived as blocks, or
stripes, in many different ways. The 58 notes are repeated exactly, thoughout the piece, 170 times to be precise, but
the ways in which they are distributed between the four pianos, i.e. the ‘voicings’, are always different.
Tom Johnson

Les Moutons de Panurge was written in 1969 for Frans Brüggen. Like Terry Riley Rzewski is writing in the preface:
for any number of musicians playing melody instruments + any number of non musicians playing anything. The
instructions are simple but effective: Read from the left to the right, playing the notes as follows: 1, 1-2, 1-2-3, 1-2-3-4,
etc. When you have reached note 65, play the whole melody once again and then begin subtracting notes from the
beginning: 2-...-65, 3-...-65, 4-...-65, ..., 62-63-64-65, 63-64-65, 64-65, 65. Hold the last note until everybody has
reached it, then begin an improvisation; using any instruments. All in strict unison; octave doubling allowed if at least 2
instruments in each octave always play loud, never stop or falter, stay together as long as you can, but if you get lost,
stay lost. Do not try to find your way back into the fold. Continue to follow the rules strictly.

“A guerrilla is someone who is sacrificing his life...Without blood there is no cause...I use (the term) Gay Guerrilla in
the hopes that I might be one if called upon." Julius Eastman Gay Guerrilla was written in September 1979 for four
pianos in a typical Eastman style like his Crazy Nigger, Evil Nigger. The score shows a timeline and rhythmical
modules with a fixed pitch. The typical repetition style, various pianos entering one after another, Eastman created his
own style of minimalism. Eastman quotes the Lutheran hymn "Ein feste Burg ist unser Got" (A mighty fortress is our
God), re-interpreting that affirmation of faith as a sonic manifesto, then concludes with the majestic rising modal scale
that helps make this work an anthem to liberation unique in contemporary classical music.
Minimal Piano Collection, Volume XIX

In Again Out Again was written in March 1968 by Philip Glass. The piece looks similar to Piano Phase by Steve
Reich, also written for two pianos, playing in the same register and also a score that fits on two single pages. There
are 20 fragments played by piano one from 1 to 20; piano two is starting at 20 going backwards to fragment number 1.

Theme from Wiek (2009) is a new version of the Epilogue from Music for Wiek. Wiek (Rotor), is a dance & theater
collaboration between director Boukje Schweigman and Douwe Eisenga. The score, written for saxophone quartet,
piano and percussion, is full of hypnotizing patterns, thundering drums, pounding saxes and lyrical pianos. The
Epilogue, originally for piano and soprano saxophone is very calm. Jeroen van Veen made this version for two pianos.
Douwe Eisenga, 2009

Orpheus Over and Under was written by David Lang on March 3rd, 1989 for the Double Edge, Nurit Tilles & Edmund
Niemann in memory of Lois Atlas Lang. The two movement piece (Aria & Chorale) is build on tremolos played on both
pianos. The sound reminds of Charlemagne Palestine's 'Strumming Music' (1974) and the Julius Eastman sound on
four pianos. Both the examples are relatively free (Eastman), or even partially improvised (Palestine). In Orpheus
Over and Under everything is traditionally written with no room for improvisation.

Incanto nr. I, was written in 2009 and dedicated to Möllie, although the drafts to write a piece for two pianos goes
back to 2007. Inspiration; my wonderful machine, bringing me joy and a good cop of coffee every day spending in my
studio. The Saeco Coffee Machine type is Incanto. The sound of the machine serving me fresh brewed coffee for
many years. The main motive from Incanto is a motive from a pop song that I played a lot in the car radio on long trips
to various concerts. Out of the album Melody A.M. from Röyksopp, I always felt so common with the first track: So
Easy. I made a 7/8 motive, added some notes, and used various techniques from such as imitation, augmentation,
diminution. In the middle section some notes are being reduced until only half of the original motive stays. That
becomes a new motif in itself with a Spanish flavour. In the end it evolves to a melodic part, based on all the previous
material.
Minimal Piano Collection, Volume XX

Old Songs new Songs (1988), was written in a polyphonic way, using the ancient techniques of the canon. One
voice is following the other, noting that the imitation distance (repetition of a theme in another voice such that each
part continues polyphonously) differs from time to time. Apart from the canonical melodic lines, treble and bass lines
develop, that stretch out much longer. These new lines are creating a second musical layer, because they don’t
merge with the existing ones. Also in Entrata (1996), on this cd in a version for three pianos, is based on the imitation
like in Old Songs, new Songs, now extended with a third piano that carries it’s own voice. Where Old Songs, new
Songs is pending between E flat major and c minor, Entrata is changing much more often by using more keys.
Harmonically speaking Entrata is much freer so to speak. The first piano from Between the Beats (1979) is repeating
a one bar motive throughout the whole piece. The second piano is playing the counterpoint, playing a pattern
introducing new notes one by one, adding to the existed ones. After completing the motive, the second piano is
introducing a new pattern, using various techniques as augmentation, diminution. Later on in the piece pitches are
being varied. All pianos are playing most of the time in the same area, melting their sounds and creating more
instruments, and voices than notated. This phenomenon of melting sounds with equal instruments has drawn my
attention from Between the Beats, my opus 1, and has been a leading component in my works. Joep Franssens.

In Liebliches Lied, Gracious Song, written in 1980, Rabinovitch did a research on the unity of musical phenomena
throughout the history of music: he treated two themes alluding to Schubert and to Brahms. The use of the even
numbers 2,4,6, and 8 is meant to create a circular movement in the musical unfolding process, whereas the straight
movement of the melodic curve brings us back to the ‘historicity’ of the borrowed themes. The melody creates the
illusion of a sustained breath that expires towards the end of the piece.

Meredith Monk originally composed Phantom Waltz for Ellen Fisher's dance-theater work Dream Within a Dream,
inspired by the life and work of Edgar Allan Poe. It was used to accompany the part of her piece which was based on
Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death." It was later developed it into a concert form. The bi tonality in Phantom Waltz
sets up a tension between the dancing motion and the sense of hovering doom. Special on this piece, besides the
heavenly atmosphere, the option that is included for two optional endings.

This piece ends the journey through my Minimal Piano Collection, Volume X – XX.
I hope you enjoy it!

Jeroen van Veen, 2010