Piano Trios
Violin
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Piano
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Cello
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 Batik painting by Greg Tricker
'Het Achterhuis'
The Secret Annexe (for Anne Frank) composed in 1988 for violin, cello & piano in six movements Duration 37 minutes (See also Souvenir d'Anne Frank) |
.....serious, moving premiere'' |
Souvenir d'Anne Frank theatre work based on Het Achterhuis
From 2011-2012 Ensemble Theatre Company toured the UK with performances of Souvenir d'Anne Frank - written by Elizabeth Mansfield
From 2011-2012 Ensemble Theatre Company toured the UK with performances of Souvenir d'Anne Frank - written by Elizabeth Mansfield
Download Souvenir d'Anne Frank Education Pack for high schools -
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I am deeply impressed by Ensemble's Souvenir d'Anne Frank project. It is in my opinion not only an educational production of high value to young people, but an amazingly fascinating theatrical and musical event, that I will never forget. The collaborative painting workshop is another addition to this project, which will surely influence everyone attending it in a most humanistic way in the ideals of my cousin Anne Frank. I wish Souvenir d'Anne Frank all the success it deserves.” |
Buddy Elias
By Scott-Hendryk Dillan
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Piano Trio No. 2 - for violin, cello & piano
completed in 2010. This is a three movement work, duration 12 mins. Stylistically it looks back in time, though the final slow movement is distinctly ‘modern’. |
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Piano Trio No.3 - 'Fragments', for violin, cello & piano
in four movements - duration 17:43 |
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Piano Trio No.4 - for violin, cello & piano
composed in 2022, with high school students in mind. It is in three titled movements. - duration 11:30 'Quis custodiet ipsos custodes' I - A leisurely stroll through parliament grounds II - Sleeping with the enemy III - Dancing with the devils |
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Piano Trio No.5 - for violin, cello & piano
'Unlikely Things Happen Through the Bodies of Beasts' (in memory of UK artist Adam White) Orreries I - III in three movements duration 16:00 Dedicated to British artist Adam White who created the painting 'Children's Games' for the premiere of my Symphony No.1 (The Gloucester Symphony). Sadly Adam passed away on Christmas Day 2022. As a student of composition I was discouraged from using diminished chords (something of the romantic past) and mixing styles. So I have done both of these things in this eclectic work, which employs techniques such as serialism, inversion and retrograde inversion, fugue, stretto, counterpoint, melody and accompaniment, ostinato and dance forms. Adam's artwork was quite eclectic so this seems to be a fitting piece in his memory. Adam White was one-of-a-kind, a truly creative artist. |
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Piano Trio No.6 - for violin, cello & piano
'Wash All the Flags' in four movements duration 23:28 contains snippet of the German marching song - Lebe wohl du kleine Monika (1939) 'Farewell little Monika. We must be divorced today!' |
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Piano Trio No.7 - for violin, cello & piano
in four movements duration 22:40 'Purim'
The seventh piano trio opens with the slow passage of time described by descending chromaticism and pizzicato strings. Simple ‘Sephardic melodies’ emerge and develop into a limping dance. The Rondo second movement explodes with energy but quickly subsides into a more melodic, chordal section full of sunshine and lazy afternoons. Ascending chromaticism takes us to a climactic moment of double-stopping for the strings and after two serious deep notes from the cello the piano answers in kind with a sombre melody. Thus follows a more lyrical and gentle section with more ‘Sephardic’ melodies. The rondo’s main theme returns and again ascending chromaticism takes us to a climax point where there is an echo of my Piano Trio No.2. Tolling piano bells end the movement. Trills and pizzicati colour the shorter final movement. The music of the coda begins on low cello but quickly ascends into a simple melody and finally the top and bottom notes of the piano. |
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Piano Trio No.8 The Three Christs of Ypsilante - for violin, cello & piano in three movements duration 9:00 The Three Christs of Ypsilanti was a psychiatric case study conducted in 1964 by Milton Rokeach, concerning his experiment on a group of three males with paranoid schizophrenia at Ypsilanti State Hospital in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Rokeach believed that they would cure each other. Instead each held to their absolutist claims of exclusive entitlement, maintaining their ‘point-of-view’. They refused to listen to each other and even came to blows. Such is the current state of the world. Everyone is maintaining their point-of-view and demanding absolute rights. Such a policy is unsustainable. It was quite hard to write music based on this theme. Music by its nature evolves from listening and agreements. I deliberately made each instrument – violin, cello and piano, maintain their absolutist statements. They ‘deliberately’ refuse to listen to one another. Instead they continue to repeat their own (what is own?) separative ‘mantras’ over and over. No ideas are taken up by the other voices; though sometimes a mere echo of someone else’s statement may reappear later in altered form like a distant memory. Needless to say the overall effect of the piece is unsatisfying – my apologies! |
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String Quartets