Mozart and Nyman: two composers who have intrigued me since my youth. It has long been my dream to connect them in a special project, and this year, for the occasion of my 50th birthday, I have fulfilled this wish.

I asked Michael Nyman, who loves Mozart’s music as much as I do, to compose six piano pieces directly related to Mozart's piano sonatas. Each of these pieces connects with two ‘new’, three-movement sonatas from the first, second and third movements of six different Mozart sonatas and the C minor Fantasy. This link between antiquity and modernity results in a fluid listening experience and makes for a thrilling and innovative concert programme.

The story of ‘The Mozart Nyman Concert’ is unique. After playing a streamed concert at the Mozart Festival in Würzburg in June 2020, I had a conversation with the artistic director Evelyn Meining about my plan to record a new CD, with works by Mozart combined with new compositions by Michael Nyman, which I would like to commission. She was immediately excited about this idea, and followed up with an invitation to premiere this programme at the Mozart Festival in 2021. The first contact with Michael did not take place until the beginning of September 2020, as he was still very busy with another project over the summer. We didn't know each other personally until then and, due to the pandemic, we could only get to know each other virtually at first. It was a memorable moment for me, when Michael sat in Milan on a park bench and spoke to me directly for the first time on his cell phone via video call. It was great to see how excited he was about my idea. An excellent pianist himself, he retrieved from his archive numerous Mozart sonatas that he used to play personally to be inspired – including sonatas that I had already selected for this recording.

A lively exchange then began, mostly by email. Of course, I gave him complete freedom in composing, because it was clear to me from the start that this great composer would write something wonderful for me. Gradually I got the first drafts, and it was fascinating to see how individual motifs or rhythms from Mozart's sonatas were being artfully processed. The pieces are written by a pianist – one notices that quickly. They lie very comfortably under the hands, just like the sonatas by Mozart himself. Not that there aren’t challenges, of course – technically, rhythmically but also in their design, with the music often placing high demands on the interpreter. I was given the opportunity to go through the pieces carefully before printing and was allowed to make comments that could then be incorporated. Michael then named the pieces K1 to K6. The K stands as a dedication, on the one hand, to Ludwig von Köchel, who numbered Mozart's works, and, on the other hand, to Sebastian Knauer – a great honour for me!

The pieces were finished in December 2020, and I recorded them in Berlin at the end of January 2021. I was actually able to play the world premiere on June 1, 2021 for the 100th anniversary at the Mozart Festival in Würzburg, and so despite the difficult circumstances caused by the global pandemic, a circle was closed and I was able successfully realise my idea, exactly a year after it was first conceived.

‘The Mozart Nyman Project’ is out now on BMG/Modern Recordings; for more information visit sebastianknauer.de