PROGRAM NOTE
Excursions for violin, cello and piano, is a one-movement work of tripartite structure in which musical materials presented and explored in the first of three large sections are brought back in the last section. The traditional statement-contrast-restatement form so readily suggested by such a description, however, is not quite the mold in which the work is cast. Rather, my aim was to subject the essential materials of the piece (most prominent of which are the rhapsodic, descending solo-cello passage with which the work opens and, later on, a static, slow moving, chorale-like phrase for the violin and cello) to two different developments akin, perhaps, to two diverging paths in life undertaken by the same characters. These two large formal blocks are separated by a slow, lyrical contrasting section, remnants of which later return at the close of the work in a mood both more resigned and peaceful than that evoked by the battling spirits of the outer parts.
The piano trio combination, once highly favored but to this composer still as challenging today, is approached here as a collaborative effort of three equal soloists-partners. Of the available pairings, the two strings find themselves occasionally approached as a team pitted against the piano. The cello-piano combination is also not uncommon here, and there is an extended violin cadenza toward the end. Thus, balance is sought not only on the formal, thematic and harmonic levels, but also in terms of the participating forces put into action here.
—Shulamit Ran
INFORMATION
Written with the aid of a Project Completion Grant awarded by the Illinois Arts Council
First performance:
Conference on Israeli Music
Directed by Sally Pinkas
April 24, 1983
Brandeis University,
Waltham MA
Duration: c. 20’
RECORDING
Peabody Trio (Violaine Melançon, violin; Stephen Kraines, cello; Seth Knopp, piano): Shulamit Ran,
New World Records 80554-2
SHEET MUSIC
Available from your favorite sheet music seller, or directly from Theodore Presser.