and yet, and yet (after Keringő)
two pianos
2026
duration: 4'
written for Evaggelia Zacharopoulou and Catherine Chang
This piece was premiered on the 25th of September 2026 at Silk Street Music Hall London by Evaggelia Zacharopoulou and Catherine Chang
and yet, and yet is a reflection on Kurtág’s ‘Pilinszky János Waltz’ in which he responds to János Pilinszky’s poem ‘Keringő’ (Waltz). The original poem reflects on a crumbling childhood home, and the way memory turns the past immortal: “and yet, and yet unceasingly facing the setting sun all that is past is immortal.”
In writing this piece, I turned to digital memory, and the faltering, imperfect nature of file formats. Fragments of Kurtág’s harmony are processed through layers of mp3 software degradation, expanding the harmony into spectral, bell-like tones. These harmonies are threaded through the piece in a single swelling motion, aching and desperate at the thought of a memory now fading. The second piano wanders through an incomplete scale, lost in thought; also desperate to remember. The entire piece culminates in the faded memory and the one trying to remember reaching out to eachother, still cycling, unmoving, through the same material.
© 2025 Thomas Shorthouse
