Secret
Game - a Poem for Piano.
In recent years I hadnt written a piece for the piano. I crossed the street
when this instrument came my way. I felt its sound was too one-dimensional.
I wanted colours, different colours, and layers that intertwine and mingle.
The piano this big, black boat this instrument of my memories.
As a child Id sat in front of it, feeling great about the surface of the
keys, feeling it and listening to sounds and noises. Later though I had the
usual pianistic career, the teacher and the pencilled practice, the routines
that would poison any relationship with the instrument.
When Sigrid Trummer asked me to write a piano piece, suddenly the desire came
to get back to my first, childhood moments, to that intimate relationship with
the Klavier. I wanted to speak through it with a muted voice, with my hand before
my lips, as if I were trying to avoid getting caught writing for it. Caught
doing what? Certainly not fishing in the stagnant pools of piano literature.
No, I wanted to fish out a quiet, almost soundless piece from my past, gently
vibrant, reminding me so much of what was said, and yet remaining so foreign
- in other words, a secret game.
Thomas Heinisch
Translated by Stephen Ferguson