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Music Monday | A Composer, Two Sisters, and Five Orchestras | August 17, 2026
- Aug 17
- 1 min read
We have featured Katia and Marielle Labèque before, and they are worth every return visit. This time we bring them to you in a piece written expressly for them by one of the most celebrated composers alive.
Philip Glass has written twelve concertos, but when he finally turned to two pianos, he had only one duo in mind. Composed for the Labèque sisters in the fall and winter of 2014 and co-commissioned by five of the world’s great orchestras, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Orchestre de Paris, the Double Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra had its world premiere at Walt Disney Concert Hall in May 2015. Glass himself said he had long admired the sisters and was “very happy to hear their brilliant playing and interpretative skills” with his music.
The result is a work of hypnotic beauty in three movements, two fast and one achingly slow, in which the pianos and the orchestra weave into a single tapestry of sound rather than competing against each other. The New York Times called it “inventive and unusual,” with the sisters delivering “a scintillating and elegant performance.”
Some pairings between composer and interpreter feel inevitable in retrospect. This is one of them.
