PIANO TRIO (2008)
piano, violin and cello, 25 min.

As I made my first sketches for the Piano Trio, vague images began to take on elemental forms. The first movement began in dark pulsations. The piano emerged with a reaching, circular shape, providing the basic thematic ideas for the entire movement. I realized I was writing about water.

"Unto Dust," the central movement, was inspired by Irwin Kremen’s elegiac collage series Re’eh. The artist abstracts powerful emotions with masterfully torn shapes of taupe, white and black. The music begins with a mournful cello melody. The violin, then the piano, enter with solo ideas, and all three themes are simultaneously developed. A tranquil chorale follows, met eventually with violent march-like outbursts. The chorale reappears and dissipates into shimmering fragments and tremolos.

I wanted to follow two weighty and introspective movements with contrast. "Into Light" is a perpetually moving dance investigating whirling motions and skittering rhythms. Toward the end, the principal theme of the first movement is recast in a vibrant, optimistic light.

The Trio was commissioned by Music@Menlo and was first performed by Jeffrey Kahane, piano, Joseph Swensen, violin, and David Finckel, cello. Recorded on Music@Menlo Live: The Unfolding of Music II, 2008 (Disc 2).

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