Works

Alessandro Solbiati
Zu neuen Freuden (2000)
for 2 Pianos

There is something spacious, something symphonic, about the ensemble "two pianos": The unique limit given to writing for piano, which consists of the disproportion between the immensity of the keyboard and the relative smallness of the two hands that travel about it, becomes sweeping when the instruments are multiplied (without, however, the limitations placed on "four-hands" music).
From this is derived a sort of composite "intoxication", which led me to do just what one cannot do with a single piano: use simultaneously the sound of the strings and the keys, hold a harmony over a very long timespan with the middle pedal, so that it's possible to create a harmonic background held against the swirling of scales, staccatos, etc.
The piece is divided in four principal episodes: the first and the third generate a strong tension to fall on the second and the fourth, calm and dreaming.