"It was turning in a circle" is the ending of a famous quote from Gabriel García Márquez 's One Hundred Y ears of Solitude. This novel is one of my favorite books of all time, and a kind of obsession that I have returned to a few times in my work (see my orchestral work Siempre Lunes, Siempre Marzo). The complete quote reads “ ...time was not passing...it was turning in a circle... ” and it encapsulates one of the most important themes of the novel: the cyclic nature of time in Macondo (the fictional town at the center of the work). 

In addition to this inspiration, I was also intrigued by the two pianos, with their large range and identical timbres. This question led me to structure the whole work around duplications and repetitions. The first movement takes its direct inspiration from the García Márquez and is meant to represent the common theme of repetition in the novel, where many of the characters across the generations have the same names: Aureliano and José Arcadio. The movement consists of alternating sections, each inspired by one of the brother 's names. The Aureliano sections are strict, calculating and methodical, and the José Arcadio sections are forceful, free and wild. As the movement unfolds and the various sections repeat, they get progressively shorter and more complex. The ending represents a palindrome from the gesture that kickstarts the whole work. 

The second movement has a purely musical inspiration, I had this image of dueling salsa pianists playing against each other . The movement unfolds with the presentation of these stock figures known as montunos in salsa. However as each montuno is presented it is then reproduced in a different way (with its rhythms distorted, slower , faster , etc.). Montunos are usually short vamps that salsa pianists are supposed to repeat, so the theme of repetition and duplication continues in this scherzo-like middle movement. 

The final movement titled "du bleicher Geselle!/Cheshire cat grin " refernces Schubert's late song titled Der Doppelgänger (a setting of a Heinrich Heine poem) which depicts one of the earliest appearances of the figure of the Doppelgänger in literature. The song features a repeating chord progression that bears an uncanny resemblance to one of my favorite Radiohead song "Jigsaw Falling into Place" from their album "In Rainbows. " 

The title of the movement comes from lyrics in the two songs. "Du bleicher Geselle!" translates to " you pale comrade!" The music in this movement takes the chord progression from the Schubert as its basis. The chords and accompaniment from the Radiohead song do emerge in the background, but the repeating passacaglia of the Schubert becomes the blank canvas on which many new melodies and ideas are projected, including returning material from the opening movement.