To write a trio for French horn, violin, and piano, first you have to love the Brahms trio (not to men􀀛on the Lige􀀛 trio!). Second, you have to forget that you’ve ever even heard it! No way to compete with that sublimity. Instead, I wrote a four movement trio that sounds nothing like the Brahms, but uses his favorite writng device, one he learned from Beethoven. It’s what Schoenberg called “developing variation”—developing music as if it is plant unfurling from a seed, in continual self-discovery and evolu􀀛on from its opening idea. The French horn opens my trio with a fanfare, and most of the music in the next four movements sprout from the energy, rhythms, and contours of that fanfare.

This first movement is a big sprawling sonata, drama, dramatic with many moods. It becomes obsessed with the fanfare to the point of referencing Beethoven’s fifth symphony, a work most famously obsessed with a single mo􀀛ve. The second movement is an expressive nocturne (night piece) that explores the colors of the ensemble. The pianist reach plays subtle harp effects inside the piano. The horn at one point plays with a mute, and the violin plays harmonics and feathery bow strokes (tremolo). The third movement is a scherzo, marked to be played fast and whispery. The repeated notes from the fanfare now sound dissonant and rather jazzy. The finale is also a dance that transforms the fanfare into a tarantella, all about momentum and virtuosity. It amplifies the horn, violin, and piano almost into a small chamber orchestra.

My horn trio was commissioned by Sierra Ensemble with Janis Lieberman, horn; Randy Weiss, violin; and Marc Steiner, piano. The trio and I collaborated in a creative residency at the Avaloch Farm Music Ins􀀛tute in New Hampshire where we prepared the premiere performance.