Commissioned by the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition as a mandatory piece in the 2008 Competition.

Metamorphosis I examines in a way the most resonant intervals-the perfect octave and the perfect fifth. These first two intervals of the overtone series were almost banned by the most strict followers of the atonal and serial music. This extreme stand was partly due to their reaction against the excessive use of octaves in the Romantic piano literature and partly because the fifth as a delimited interval defined the major and minor chords representing the tonal/modal system they wanted to abolish. Also by being so consonant and stable, using these intervals was against the sentiments of an epoch sanctifying dissonance and instability.

 

These very attributes mentioned above are those which attract my creative imagination and my musical sensibility. I like the very fact that these intervals are so sonorous and their use seems to me to be very idiomatic and natural for the piano.

 

The very different, even contrasting moods of the consequent movements conceal the fact that they all share the basic musical material which undergoes far reaching changes-in short –a metamorphosis.