piano concerto written for the Queen Elizabeth competition in 1991; duration: c.13'30"

This concerto is for solo piano and three groups of instrumentalists arranged around the soloist either in three concentric circles, or three half-circles - 6 brass, 12 woodwind, and 18 strings. In the composer's search for a personal musical language this piece (among others) trawls through Western musical history - mostly a history of harmonic development - with the help of various quotes, parodies and thematic fragments, most prominently: a pattern of the 12 chromatic notes divided into groups of 6, 4, 3, and 2; and an unfolding melodic line built entirely on a succession of fourths and multiples of fourths. The seven sections are also in some way representations of the seven parables of the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 13), with a final coda - a 'sunrise' - similar to the apotheosis at the end of Anna's Rapid Eye Movement.