Two Drinks

Year: 2000

Heading: for piano

First Performance:
24 September 2001
Alice Tully Hall, New York City
Nana Mukhadze

Duration: 6'

Program Note:
The music calls to mind a sultry cosmopolitan atmosphere of dim lights and intimacy. Two melodies—a lower one and an upper one— may suggest two people, at the beginning stage of getting to know one another. As the phrase moves up, one melody gets shorter, receding passively, while the other gets longer, becoming perhaps bolder. But as the phrase descends, the roles reverse.

Although three large phrases can be heard, this piece is in a sense, one big arch. The composition does not explore contrasts, as traditional piano pieces usually do. Instead, it has a kind of relaxed concentration, that hides that inner tension two people might feel on an early date.