"I had written a sonata for violin and piano, but never just for piano. I thought I wanted a piece about a half-hour long, in other words I wanted to give Maki a substantial piece for her program, and something she would work on herself, and be able to use her talents and energy in a way that was personally made for her." Philip Glass
"If I'm to be remembered for anything, it will be for the piano music, because people can play ist."
Now, I know her (Maki Namekawa) playing very well, especially the music she plays of mine; she was the first one to record the Etudes, and now she has been playing with Dennis Davies other music of mine for two pianos. She has been playing my music for quite a while now, so I could easily understand how she would relate to this as a physical, pianistic experience. I was very much writing it for her. Now it didn’t sound like the other pieces, and that’s important. I’ve written a lot of piano music; in the last three or four years there is a different sound to the music I’m writing, I began to see that there is a new language emerging.
I was hearing a different sound to the the music. I was finding a different expressivity for that way of working; in other words, the music is expressing something that I hadn’t done in an another piece, and I can say this truly for the Piano Sonata, this piece is not only original, it’s original for me. I haven’t written this piece before.
(Philip Glass, New York, June 2019)
Label: Orange Mountain Music