Piano Trio in Four Movements

This piece explores four musical landscapes of differing form, texture, and character, yet retains certain harmonic, thematic, and melodic elements from movement to movement.

The piece opens with a subtle emergence of delicate sonorities that eventually climax before returning to the opening material. The second movement is an aggressive and relentless scherzo, cycling through several different textures of varying boldness and rhythmic intensity. The third movement is a moment of repose; somber and melancholic, featuring the warm and lyrical qualities of the strings. The final movement is a set of ten variations on an original theme. The journey through these variations touches on moods of playful humor, serious contemplation, and fiery aggression. A reprise of the theme brings the movement, and the piece as a whole, to conclusion.


Score Sample
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SCORE
PARTS

DATE

2011

DURATION

24 minutes

INSTRUMENTATION

Violin
Cello
Piano

MOVEMENTS

I.
Emerging from a distance
II.
Energetic and aggressive
III.
Melancholy
IV.
Theme: Maestoso
Var. I
As fast as possible!
Var. II
A little slower; playful
Var. III
Slower but energetic
Var. IV
Aggressively—Rubato
Var. V
Sow and calm
Var. VI
A tempo; darkly
Var. VII
Light
Var. VIII
Fast and humorously
Var. IX
Very Fast!
Var. X
Intense!
Reprise
Dramatically

PREMIERE

April 30, 2011
Rose Recital Hall, University of Pennsylvania, PA
Solomiya Ivakhiv (vln.), Glenn Fischbach (vc.), Xiaohui Yang (pno.)

AWARDS

Finalist, 2012 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Competition
Finalist, 2011 Colors Competition

RECORDING

I. Emerging from a distance
III. Melancholy
IV. Theme and Variations

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