Karim Al-Zand: Music: Hammers and Tongs

Hammers and Tongs

for piano

Hammers and Tongs is a short and lively moto perpetuo. The piece was commissioned as the required contemporary work for the 2026 George Enescu International Piano Competition. The composition also forms a study on the musical interval of a second, with a focus on an idiosyncratic piano technique in which the thumb is used to play two adjacent pitches. The title derives from the old English idiom “hammer and tongs,” a reference to both the vigorous character of the piece, and percussive mechanism of the piano.

hammer and tongs | adverb (colloquial): with great force, vigor, determination, or vehemence; with the greatest possible strength or force; an allusion to a blacksmith repeatedly hammering a hot piece of iron held with tongs. E.g., “When he starts a difficult job, he goes at it hammer and tongs.

The dynamic and powerful performance of Hammers and Tongs by South Korean pianist Jeongwoo Lee, 18, earned him the €2000 award for “best performance of the imposed work.”