This piece was composed for two very good friends, Andy and Mary Moran, whom I first met in the summer of 2005 at the Pierre Monteux School. Andy was attending as a conductor and horn player, Mary as a member of the viola section, which meant I got to sit next to her in orchestra all summer, which I count among the singular delights I’ve been afforded.

Andy is now Professor of Horn and Orchestral Director at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point; Mary is a musician and staff member with the Central Wisconsin Symphony. The premiere was given at the UWSP School of Music, by Mary and Andy and Janna Ernst on the piano. Shortly thereafter, I travelled to Wisconsin to give further performances (as pianist) both there and in Chicago, and we have since performed it at additional concerts as part of the ARTi Gras Festival in Central Wisconsin.

Program Notes

Trio for Viola, Horn, and Piano, op. 32 (2017)

I. Risoluto
II. Lirico
III. Diabolico
IV. Finale: Passacaglia.

This piece was commissioned by Dr. Andres Moran, who was looking for music that he and his wife Mary, a violist, could perform together. Andy and Mary had been good friends of mine since we met at the Pierre Monteux School in the summer of 2005, and I was delighted when they suggested I compose something for them.

Initially, the Morans asked for a single movement work, but when I had finished that piece (now the first movement of the trio) I knew that it was only the beginning. Three movements later, the work had become among my largest, most ambitious compositions in any genre.

The trio follows a traditional four-movement structure and also features what is known as “cyclical form”, in which themes reappear throughout all the movements of a work, binding the overall piece together. For example, the theme that opens the first movement, a winding, soulful song for the horn, comes back at the end of the first movement, at the beginning of the fourth movement, and once again (in disguise) at the end of the fourth movement. Music from the third movement reappears as a variation in the fourth movement, and so on and so forth.

The music of the trio is influenced by many composers, but it is mainly an homage to Johannes Brahms. This is in large part due to the fact that Brahms wrote a trio for a very similar group of instruments, his opus 40 for violin, horn, and piano. My trio nods to Brahms in a number of ways: its predilection for dark colors and moods, its use of the deep piano register, its rigorous rhythmic counterpoint, and in its oblique references to Hungarian (or what once would have been called “Gypsy”) music.

Neither the horn nor the viola often get a star turn in chamber music, and it was a delight to write this trio as a showcase of the intrinsic beauty and capabilities of these instruments. The horn and the viola are usually considered mellow-toned, middle-register instruments, and indeed they can be, but both instruments have a much wider compass of color, expression, and register. As I knew Andy and Mary both to be phenomenal musicians, I put very few limitations on myself writing for them, and the result is a work that demands virtuoso playing, energetic execution, and deep emotional conviction.

—William C. White