Piano Trio: for violin, cello and piano

This trio takes inspiration from film and music video editing techniques, particularly those in 1980s pop videos. Specific reference points are the video for Ultravox’s ‘Vienna’, with its striking film noir shots of the city; the rapid cutting and juxtapositions in New Order’s ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’; and – especially – the long slow cross-fades in Derek Jarman’s video for the Pet Shop Boys’ ‘King’s Cross’. The literary techniques of ‘cut-up’ and ‘fold-in’ associated with William Burroughs also inform the piece. In performance, this works through the use of carefully-graded dynamics, pacing and articulation to suggest effects like fades, cuts and dissolves; compositionally, contrasting textures and types of music are juxtaposed and sometimes superimposed, aiming to give the sense at times of ‘tuning in and out’ to music which is continuously playing, as on the radio. Musical ‘types’ range from classic piano trio (even Palm Court) sounds to neo-Baroque to much more experimental approaches. Recognisable quotes (acoustic 'samples') are heard from piano music by two nineteenth-century composers, both of whom also wrote piano trios: Charles-Valentin Alkan in Part 1 and Robert Schumann in Part 2. Other material from part 1 returns in part 2, sometimes cut or mashed up with different compositional states/processes. Towards the end, cadential gestures from a number of historic piano trios (by Clara Schumann and Cecile Chaminade) are cut in, inspired by the fast cuts and juxtapositions associated with both music video editing and electronic dance music production – the latter also an inspiration for the coda section. Commissioned by Peter Fribbins for the London Chamber Music Society, the piece was premiered by the Aquinas Piano Trio at Kings Place, London, UK, on 28 January 2018. The score was published, by Composers Edition, in 2017