This work attempts to create a musical experience characterized by a multi-layered sense of time and a polytonal modal sense, by treating the pianist's left and right hands as two independent gamelan ensembles and having them perform simultaneously. In the main section, the two gamelans, played by the left and right hands, each explore 26 combinations of 13 virtual tempo sensations. These sensations are generated by grouping two types of basic pulses (16th notes and 8th-note triplets) into groups of 2, 3, 4, or 5, all performed over four fundamental tempi (160, 120, 90, 68) interconnected by rhythmic modulation. Furthermore, in the pitch system, a total of five pentatonic scales—two similar to the pelog and slendro scales originally found in gamelan music, plus three of their variants—are complementarily combined between the left and right gamelans (such that their constituent notes do not overlap).

  For me, whose creative work largely revolves around transcending the sound of 12-tone equal temperament through microtonal intervals, writing music for the piano without using extended techniques or prepared piano is quite a challenge. It is certainly not uncommon since Debussy to liken the piano keyboard, which is undeniably a type of metallic percussion instrument, to a kind of gamelan (I would particularly like to mention Poulenc's wonderful Concerto for Two Pianos and Ligeti's Piano Etudes). For me, however, it is not unrelated that this work was primarily composed during the summer, a season when I invariably find myself wanting to listen to gamelan rather than Brahms.

  This work was commissioned by Ms. Asuka Iino and premiered at her recital in 2009. Due to its performance difficulties, it has since been re-performed several times in versions for piano four hands and two pianos.