For solo piano. Kate Boyd, piano. Commissioned as the required new work for the 16 semi-finalists of the 1995 International Piano Fellowship Competition of the American Pianists Association, HAMMERSTEIN is a "wink of the eye / tongue-in-cheek" etude that draws its aesthetic and "piano technique" inspiration from the classic etudes of Chopin, Scriabin and Max Reger. However, it draws more directly from the fusion of brief, distorted fragments of two specific iconic Beethoven sources: the HAMMERKLAVIER and the WALDSTEIN sonatas - and with a touch of OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN: a brief reference to Rogers and Hammerstein's "This Nearly Was Mine" (from "South Pacific"), dedicated to all the competition pianists who would NOT be advancing to win the top prize !! There were many excellent performances of HAMMERSTEIN that weekend, but the prize for the "Best Performance of the Commissioned Work" was awarded to Juilliard pianist Andrew Russo.