The sensuous incarnation: Makrokosmos 11
By Charles Rose | August 4, 2025
For this year’s one-day microfestival, a cadre of pianists led by DUO Stephanie and Saar paired Bach’s “Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I” with the complete “Etudes for Solo Piano” of Philip Glass.
On June 27, the Makrokosmos Project gave their eleventh annual show, titled GLASSwerks, at BodyVox. The DUO Stephanie and Saar alongside six more Oregon-based pianists tackled the complete Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I by J.S. Bach and the complete Etudes for Solo Piano by Philip Glass. A secondary title to the concert given in the program was Die Empfindung Inkarnation: ”The sensuous incarnation.” The night featured an astonishing amount of music: five hours of dense, note-y pieces with little time to rest. With each note, the pianists laid bricks down for the monuments to the greatness of Bach and Glass being built before us.
To further muddle this mix of metaphors, Stephanie and Saar described the concert as a marathon, but it’s more accurately a relay. Each pianist takes turns, handing off the music to the next pianist, making progress until the race is over. Each etude, prelude and fugue could also be seen as their own miniature races, pursuing their relentless courses until they come to a dramatic stop. Before the concert Stephanie Ho told me that the Philip Glass Ensemble performs the complete Etudes with ten pianists that perform two etudes each. At Makrokosmos 11, each pianist took a thirty-minute set, taking on two or three each from the Etudes and the WTC. This interleaving of Glass and Bach had a nice flow to it and led to some spontaneous moments of interconnection.
The audience was encouraged to come and go as they pleased. At any time one could go to the lobby to grab a snack or another glass of wine, and have a chat with other patrons resting their ears. One could still hear reflections of the music through the walls, so you never truly left the relay. But most of the time the audience sat quietly and still, clapping as each pianist finished their segment and passed the baton.
Both the Well-Tempered Clavier and Glass’ Etudes are masterpieces of form and structure. The interlocking of the two allowed for some intriguing correspondences to come up as well. Many of Bach’s preludes from the WTC are a near-constant stream of notes. With a uniform texture throughout, one’s ear listens through to the careful voice leading, counterpoint and melodic arc of the piece. Glass’ etudes can be similarly uniform in texture, though his approach to harmony is more modern and less textbook than Bach (then again, it was Bach who wrote the textbooks on counterpoint, orchestration, and all the rest).
Bach and Glass at their best extract their music from the most basic musical ideas. The repetition in Glass lets you cue into the subtleties of the voice leading hidden within the dense textures, and the tala-esque rhythmic transformations. Similarly, the most elaborate fugues of Bach grow forth from basic, and maybe even trite, musical themes.
Etudes are often pedagogical works that prioritize technical concerns over musical ones, and are thus great to practice but unremarkable to listen to (sorry, Czerny). Otherwise, they are virtuosic showpieces like the etudes of Chopin, Liszt or Ligeti that require dedication to perfect. Glass’ Etudes are concerned with the idiosyncrasies of Glass’ piano writing: polyrhythms and mixed meters, intense arpeggios, gyrating chord accompaniments, controlled chromaticism, and catchy melodies. But there are moments where Hanon comes in handy, like the fast repeated notes in Etude 6 or the cascading arpeggios of Etude 15.
The technical concern with Bach’s WTC is the density of its polyphony. Bringing out each statement of the fugue subject is tricky. I’ve also gotten a sense that Bach is so difficult because the music is so perfectly composed. Not only is there a quarter millenia of performance practice and expectations, but every incorrect note sticks out like a horrific blemish upon the music’s pristine beauty.
The sharp focus on two works helped us see the great variety in interpretations from each performer. A personal favorite was the set by Susan Smith. Smith reveled in the character of each piece: the childlike simplicity of the “Prelude in C major” that sparkles under skilled hands; the existential sadness of the C sharp minor prelude and fugue; the waves of sadness and regret of Glass’ second etude. Smith played with a romantic gravitas, exaggerating dynamics and tempo, which I really enjoyed. Maybe the greatness of her performance comes from her familiarity with that specific piano: she used to own the Fazioli used for the concert, before trading it in for one with a lighter action.
Saar Ahuvia tackled the next pieces like the joyous D Major prelude and fugue with a fun swing, eyebrows cocked back, with a pursed mouth that dropped into a subtle smile. Ahuvia also gave a fiery performance of Glass’ Etude 6–a personal favorite of mine–flying around the piano with quick octave leaps and tricky polyrhythms. After his set, Stephanie Ho captured the heroism of Glass’ Etude 8 and the romantic drama of the E flat minor prelude. In the more somber moment, she let her eyes drift upwards, looking somewhere beyond. Set one ended with Alexander Schwarzkopf bringing us to the halfway mark with a delightful performance of the E major prelude tinged with a bit of sadness, along with the stormy Etude 9.
When the relay resumed, Jeff Payne gave a more restrained take on the polyrhythmic Etude 11, eyes locked into the score. He also gave a restless take on the F sharp major fugue. Yoko Greeney waved her head around a lot while playing the jubilant scale runs of the G major prelude, leading straight into the urbane majesty of Etude 13, which felt like staring at a traffic-jammed bridge at rush hour. I enjoyed Asya Gulua’s restrained lyrical performance of Etude 18 and the melancholy G sharp minor fugue.
In the final stretch, Monica Ohuchi picked up with the mysterious and introspective arpeggios that open Etude 20. She drifted side-to-side in rhythm with the phrase, with some subtle head nods and precise movements across the keyboard. Jeff Payne returned to finish the relay with a dark take on the complex B minor prelude and fugue. As it ended, there was a sense of relief and accomplishment from the performers and audience alike.
Sacred space
There were two pieces on the program that weren’t by Bach or Glass. The concert opened with Arvo Pärt’s Hymn to a Great City, a short, grand introduction for two pianos. The piece moved via blocky chords and repeated octaves–an evocation of Church bells, a common device in Pärt’s music. The Hymn was written for New York City, but Stephanie and Saar found it appropriate for Portland, a city who has provided Makrokosmos with enthusiastic audiences for over a decade.
The other was a world premiere: Bonnie Miksch’s Lament for the Levant, performed after the intermission. The intention by Miksch was to create a “sacred space,” to process grief. The character of the piece was moody, but not melodramatic. The inspiration comes from the Rumi poem “Cry out in Your Weakness.” Themes were built from tremolo chords, low tritones and half steps. The moments of soft respite were tinged with melancholy, while the intense moments were more passionate and conflicted than outright violent. The thrust of the piece led to a perpetual state of gloom centered around E flat minor, ending unceremoniously. The sadness doesn’t end, it only abates for a bit. It was a great piece, and I look forward to any future public performances.
Charles Rose is a composer, writer and sound engineer born and raised in Portland, Oregon. In 2023 he received a masters degree in music from Portland State University. During his tenure there he served as the school’s theory and musicology graduate teaching assistant and the lead editor of the student-run journal Subito. His piano trio Contradanza was the 2018 winner of the Chamber Music Northwest’s Young Composers Competition. He also releases music on BandCamp under various aliases. You can find his writing at CharlesRoseMusic.com.
