Piano Trio
Martin Bresnick
About this work:
(Published by: Carl Fischer, LLC)
Though less blatantly than does the Ives, Martin Bresnick's Piano Trio also refers to vernacular music styles. Yet if Ives, at the opening of the century, was concerned with breaking from classical forms - or at least poking some fun at them - then perhaps with Bresnick's greater distance in years from the classical era, he can return unencumbered to the ideals of balance and form.
"It's about symmetry and handedness," Bresnick remarks. "Everything in the Piano Trio is symmetrical: rhythm, pitch, melody, everything. As to its handedness, it's like the human form - one arm is always a little longer, one breast a little smaller. Two halves of the same face form an uneven symmetry."
Bresnick, a former student of Gyorgy Ligeti, John Chowning and Gottfried von Einem, is a professor of composition at the Yale School of Music. Unlike the majority of his compositions, which include works for both traditional ensembles and computers, the Piano Trio lacks a programmatic title or theme, be it literary, social or political. The composer describes it as highly abstract and personal.
The first movement begins "at music degree zero" with long, hushed tones. It has an initial musical symmetry around the note D which is slowly replaced by A-flat. The movement's decisive ending reveals both the notes as "twin stars," setting up a two-note symmetry that is explored throughout the rest of the piece. The second movement is subtitled "Cats Cradle" referring to the children's string game of forming symmetrical patterns. Like a traditional scherzo, the movement contains a kind of trio section with slower more lyrical material, which is followed by references to rock and minimalism before an abrupt ending.
Bresnick likens the third movement Parlando, Affetuoso (spoken tenderly) to a passacaglia. "This movement is one of the most passionate, almost erotic things I've ever written. It's a kind of love duet between the violin and cello - two instruments gently sharing and transferring the subject back and forth. They rise to an almost old-fashioned climax, redolent of Brahms or Chopin. That may seem surprising, but this piece does honor its ancestors. The piano sums up the movement in an ecstatic cadenza."
The final movement, Ardente, Sperduto (ardently, lost) follows without pause. "The title of the movement is a terrible paradox," the composer remarks, "since we've gone from the third movement's music of love and passion to music which is even more ardent but lost, confused, without comfort, spinning out into the void."
For further information, please contact:
Carl Fischer, LLC
65 Bleecker Street
New York, NY 10012
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Contact: Anna Bacon
annab@carlfischer.com
Year composed: 1988
Duration: 00:22:00
Ensemble type: Chamber or Jazz Ensemble, Without Voice:Piano Trio
Instrumentation: 1 Piano, 1 Violin, 1 Cello