S1 for two pianos
Un-fini III for piano
iv 11a for piano
iv 11b for piano
Contrapunctus for piano
iv 1 for piano

The piano works of Mark Andre are founded on his intensive examination of the fleeting phenomenon of sound reverberation and decay. Although he grew up with the piano and it has remained his most trusted instrument, the “percussive attack on the strings” has never interested him as much as the resonance of the sound, with its complex spectral structures and the often only shadowy presence of the fundamental pitches.

Hence, the composer works in an unstable realm, which is influenced by external factors such as the construction of the piano and the acoustics of the concert halls. His fading sounds can take numerous forms; there might be a thick cluster that reverberates on a single string, or a single note that causes the entire landscape of strings to resonate. An echo that has almost faded away may suddenly rise up from another spot inside the piano; diffuse clouds of sound change their colors or begin to flutter restlessly.

These combinations and their manipulation in time and space are usually preceded by detailed frequency analyses. Experimental work together with the performers also plays an essential role in the construction of these unstable resonating states. While Andre's early piano compositions were generated with the help of algorithms, his later works are no longer the result of calculations. Instead, he now attempts the opposite: to develop the composition out of the structure of the sound and the “breath of the material”. Compared to the cool objectivity of the works from the 1990s, the more recent pieces seem softer and more playful, although they have hardly been conceived less systematically – here, too, the intrinsic logic and necessity of every transition and development is closely scrutinized.