I. Misterioso II. Gently III. Vigorously
24 May 2019, Theater Arch3, Vienna, Austria Christopher Devine, piano; Hayato Ishibashi, violin; Tobias Stosiek; cello
Following the 70th birthday concert of my chamber works, at which the last movement of my first Piano Trio was played, it was suggested to me that I should write some more in this genre. Actually, it has been suggested more than once over the years, and finally I have done so! I was given a further nudge in that direction from having recently heard and met the Khatchaturian Trio in Yerevan, Armenia. They are superb players and I wrote with them in mind, and so here is a challenging work that will provide them, and any other good players, with lots of rewards should they decide to play it. At the time of writing however, to my knowledge they have not. Instead, it was premiered in Vienna in May of 2019, on the occasion of Andrea Mellis' 70th birthday. She is a singer/director, and she put together a most memorable program of songs and arias. She also did me the great honour of programming this trio. The first movement is very Romantically charged, with rich harmonies, dense textures and broad melodies. To be sure, it is in my style of dissonant tonality, sometimes very chordal and traditional and sometimes, when I felt it was appropriate, quite strikingly dissonant. The second movement is the one that gives this trio its nickname, "The Armenian". In writing in 2016, a theatre piece based on the life of St. Gregory (The Illuminator) of Armenia, I came across a lullaby called "Ruri, Ruri" and fell in love with it. I used it of course in the opera, and have set it once more here in this trio. I have even made a setting of it for mixed choir. The last movement is a circus polka, energetic to the point of mania, and requiring a strong left hand on the part of the pianist. It gets its inspiration from the Shostakovich Piano Concerto #2, one of whose movements starts fast and furious and just keeps growing.