Listening Music for two pianos (1973)

Tomasz Sikorski’s output is dominated by works for piano or works featuring the piano. However, only two of them are written exclusively for two pianos: Diaphonyfrom 1969 and Listening Musicwritten four years later. These are compositions characterised by much reduced musical material and open duration. In addition, both pieces are based on simple and short modules repeated many times.

In Listening Music Sikorski uses four modules with a very similar structure. They differ only in their rhythmic structure, which in successive modules is not so much slowed down but ‘thinned down’. Three rhythmic values appearing after the initial semiquaver group are gradually (in each successive module) lengthened. Thus music seems to be getting increasingly static, as if disappearing into the distance, which prompts the listener to ‘listen out’ more and more attentively.  

The premiere, featuring the composer and Jean-Pierre Armengaud, took place on 8 August 1973 in the French town of Saint Maximin.