专辑简介

John Harbison remarks on his String Trio. "When I was fifteen years old I began a string trio. I wrote about three pages before deciding it was too difficult for me at that time. All subsequent attempts over the last forty years yielded the same result. In the meantime I have performed string trios by Beethoven and Mozart, and studied others. I have no reason to believe the medium has gotten easier, but my music has become somewhat simpler and has fewer notes, which I imagine to be an advantage. The piece begins very loud, or perhaps very soft, or better with an intriguing neutrality of mood which takes on a kind of menace. The impression is formidable but at the same time winning, even droll. Let the critic not be fooled however by this veneer of friendliness. I have a knife for his ribs later on, at the moment of greatest security. By the end even the violist has lost all sense of normalcy, or decency."\n\nThe “Four Songs of Solitude” were written for Harbison’s wife, the violinist Rose Mary Harbison, to whom he has dedicated numerous works. The four movements are distinct in character, the more plaintive Song 1 followed by Song 2 which opens lyrically, but quickly becomes more chordal and rhythmically propulsive. Song 3 is relatively spare, using silence to evoke the titular solitude, and Song 4, after a virtuosic eruption in the middle, returns to the melancholic feel of the piece’s beginning.\n\nJohn Harbison has an abiding interest in American music of all kinds, including jazz, the Great American Songbook, and hymns. The songs he has rewritten as “Songs America Loves To Sing” are some of the most familiar in American music, including “Amazing Grace” and a song made famous by the great blues singer, Bessie Smith, “St. Louis Blues.”\n\nRecorded January and May 2014 at the Recital Hall, SUNY Purchase in New York.\n\nProducer, recording and editing engineer: Adam Abeshouse