Piano Trio.

Piano Trio is an original composition, commissioned by Austrian Government/Austrian Radio (score published by Music Haven (2007)). It premiered under the auspices of the British Council and British Embassy, by Haydn Trio Eisenstadt, ORF Concert Hall, Vienna and subsequently broadcast on Austrian Radio. The principal research questions, addressed through composition, relate specifically to the compositional role of tonality, in contemporary performance, for the piano trio. What is significant in the work is the development of a particular non-functional tonality, where conventional diatonically-functioning tonality is replaced with an approach of tonicisation, or localised tonics. The latter are sometimes diatonically tonal in a traditional sense (and hence potentially reference older traditions), and at other times incorporated into a contrapuntal context. This compositional strategy builds on the stylistic approaches of 20th century composers - for instance on the chamber music of Alfred Schnittke who created stylistic montage through contrasting tonal and harmonic elements. Piano Trio sought to mediate these techniques, in terms of combination and manifestation, to the end of achieving structural coherence in the traditional sense, through organic motific growth and aesthetic uniformity. Piano Trio, taken together with other late 20th and early 21stC British piano trios (e.g. Anthony Payne, 1998), is an attempt to reappraise the genre in creative and professional terms, thereby reaching a wide general and specialist audience.