Trio
(vln, cl in Bb, vc)
Duration: 20:00
Date of Composition: 1975
PROGRAM NOTES:
Formally, my Trio for violin, clarinet, and cello can be represented by a telescope of three sections. There three sections are an analogue of the three movements in the Trio, performed here without pause. In the first movement (the large section of the telescope), the tempo is slow, and melodic leaps are large. The second movement (middle section of the telescope) is twice as fast as the first, and the melodic intervals are smaller. The third movement is half again as fast, and the melodic intervals are yet smaller. The first movement runs some eight minutes, at a tempo of mm=50, the second approximately five minutes, at mm=100; the third, around three minutes, at a tempo of 150 beats per minute.
The content within this telescope form consists of sustained lines and short, gestural comments, each instrument singing and commenting in its own idiomatic way. There is, to my mind, a certain, ongoing, dramatic confrontation between the melodic and the gestural. Indeed, the instruments and their individual capabilities directly influenced most of the musical material. This highly individualized material is but an extension of the supreme tenet of counterpoint: that each line remain distinct in the musical texture and independently audible.
Thus, one approach the listener may take to this music is to focus on a single instrumental line; yet, although the separate lines may be independently audible, each of the three instruments is interwoven intro an intricate textural whole. Each is heard in the context of the other. As composition, the resulting harmonic and rhythmic complexity demands from the performers a precision in ensemble playing, which , I hope, provides for the listener a high degree of musical immediacy
The Trio was commissioned by the Society for Commissioning New Music and is dedicated to John W. Petersen. The first performance took place at University of North Texas on April 26, 1975, with the following performers:
Kenneth Schanewerk, violin
John Petersen, clarinet
Monte Knutson, cello
-James Sellars