Your music makes extraordinary demands on the pianist. What do you do to prepare yourself to play such works impeccably?

There is nothing better, if you want to jump two meters, than to try and jump two and a half. And if I have jumped three meters, I'm very calm when I need to jump only two. With some pieces, I take it to the extreme and think as if I had to jump thirty meters. With the work memorized, I sit at the piano, and, with eyes closed, imagine that I am playing through the piece, but without moving either hands or feet. Of course, in those conditions, I often lose my place, have to go back, etc. That is so extremely complicated that to play the work on the instrument afterwards seems very easy. It's a habit to consider that things are easy or difficult. To do something correctly is very complicated: an insignificant motion represents many complex actions. What is difficult is difficult. What is easy - even more difficult.

What are some unique characteristics of your approach?

One technique that appears in many of my pieces is to play two notes almost together. The maudlin way to use this resource is that of the bad interpreters who murder Chopin. I use it when I need another kind of expression than can be obtained by sounding two notes together: a state of vacillation, of insecurity. For example, in Sonatinas de Amistad, it creates an atmosphere where everything seems broken. I also use it to show a certain type of accord, since one of the things I like in life is that sometimes, by a miracle, we do manage to agree. In Ontogenia, - the musical version -, this occurs, but haltingly; not with everyone singing at the same time, but instead like a vague disagreement, which at moments becomes an agreement. First, a voice says: "Oh, I understand." Then another: "Yes.., I understand..." To express this slight disagreement, the interpreter must manifest an uncertainty that confidently describes the lack of confidence. It's much easier to march in unison like soldiers than to march in an orderly disorder.

What led you to your compositions for multiple pianos?

The piano, in essence, is an autonomous instrument. In general, concertos for piano and orchestra are "fabricated" for the soloist to shine. To combine piano with piano is different: if offers a very wide territory. The sonority of two or more pianos is, for me, that of a new instrument.

What music for piano of other composers do you find of particular value?

The Well-Tempered Clavier, the French and English Suites of J.S. Bach (on the piano, not the harpsichord), certain sonatas of Haydn and Beethoven, the Nocturnes and Mazurkas of Chopin, the Preludes and the Elegy of Debussy, the Ludus Tonalis of Hindemith, Shostakovich's Twenty Four Preludes and Fugues, the twenty-four fugues of Hans Gál, the sonata of Stravinsky, the Almería of Albéniz, the Tales of the Old Grandmother by Prokofiev. The works that are of yesterday, today, and tomorrow are the truly artistic ones. Those I've mentioned seem to me as if they were created just now. The same for the words of Christ, the Venus de Milo, certain works of Rembrandt, Metsu, Vermeer, Bronzino, Chardin, certain pages of Proust, Constant, Bunin, Murasaki, Cervantes, Duhamel, Tolstoy; and some expressions - the movies themselves are irrelevant - of Greta Garbo, Olivia de Havilland, Burt Lancaster, Charles Chaplin.