Hiroaki OOI + Takahiko SUZUKI, pianos Live recording of Tokyo premiere (6 Mar. 2004)

publisher: Mother Earth, Tokyo

When I entered university, the first person I met in the music research society's clubroom was Hiroaki Ooi. From his audacious demeanor, I never imagined he was also a first-year student, but he was. He was well-versed in contemporary music and showed me scores of various contemporary pieces. After that, besides our club activities, we organized various concerts at places like the Institut français du Japon - Kansai. Among them was a concert titled "Impudent Youngster Etudes." It was a concert that featured only works written when the composers were around our age (around 20), and I believe the program included early works by composers such as Boulez, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Toshi Ichiyanagi. More than ten years passed since then, and in my mid-thirties, I attended Takahiko Suzuki's recital. Barraqué's Sonata was a "Youngster Etude" that I encountered again after a long time. I wanted to compose a piece with the spirit of a 20-year-old. It was like writing a piece full of ambition in a cramped lodging, with no leeway, writing superfluous notes only to erase them with an eraser. To attempt algorithmic composition using a computer, I purchased software called MAX. I composed the piece using a program written in MAX as a foundation.