Score and Parts.Commissioned by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Centre. First performance 19 May 1998 Merkin Concert Hall New York City.Quoting Weir: 'In my previous work I have often enjoyed inventing titles whichattempt to encapsulate the particular world of each composition but this fifteen minutes piece for violin cello and piano is simply entitled Piano Trio . What is the reason for this unusually abstract description? I thinkperhaps that in this piece the many external impressions which habitually make up my musical world have become too numerous and too personal to be pinned down in the space of few words that a composition title allows.The firstmovement began in my mind with impressions of Venice as relayed in Schubert's song Gondelfahrer; the crisp midnight air the dark choppy water the bells tolling the gondolier alone in emotional turmoil. Schubert's world is aplace where I can find constant inspiration and strength.The second movement recalls a time when I was called from a phone box in Africa. At one moment I was alone in my room the next (or so it seemed in my imagination)surrounded by light heat and sudden energy and activity. The movement is not however an evocation of African music; it takes the form of a scherzo and trio which collide with each other at the movement's conclusion.Thethird movement formed in my mind whilst I was reading some Gaelic poetry from the Hebridean island of Lewis on Scotland 's far flung Atlantic fringe. I was thinking of the bleached white beaches in that part of the world whereevery object lying on the sand - a washed-up bottle or a bird's skeleton - is a major event in a deserted landscape. The same might be said of this short set of musical variations where melodic fragments are laid out with plentyof space around them clear and plain for everyone to hear.

Light And Matter was jointly commissioned by the Library of Congress Britten Sinfonia Norrbotten NEO and the Aeolian Chamber Players in honour of the 50th anniversary of the Bowdoin International MusicFestival. Composed in 2014 by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho the piece is for Violin Cello and Piano. Saariaho states that her inspiration for this work came from looking out of herwindow in New York at the changing lights and movements of Morningside Park. The piece manages to accurately represent the dynamism of movement and kinetic energy through the musical interplay of the threeinstruments. The piece saw its world premiere at  Bowdoin International Festival on July 30th 2014 with Renee Jolles on Violin Nicholas Canellakis on Cello and Benjamin Hochman onPiano.

Opus 65-Dvo ák worked longer and more intensively on this Trio than on just about any other chamber music work. After his first successes with pieces inspired by Czech folk music namely the popular Slavonic Dances (HN 757 and918) he now wanted to prove himself as a composer of the highest order. This is why in the following summer he thoroughly reworked the Trio that he had written within eight weeks in spring 1883 before giving it to his publisher.Although Brahms? music was the undeniable model for the new work it did not hinder the unfolding of a very personal tone that blends expressiveness and passion. As with the ?Dumky? Trio op. 90 (HN 799) Andreas Groethuysen isonce again responsible for the fingerings of the Piano part.

Ravel was not only a master craftsman of exquisitely constructed chamber works but he was also a key innovator inspired by the tonal/atonal experiments of Schoenberg Stravinsky and the Second Viennese School. This is most closely reflected in the remarkable Mallarmé Poems Ravel's closest approach to the modernist innovations. Elsewhere his Piano Trio presents a perfect example of the delicacy and intricacy of Ravel's chamber music. Joined by several other full chamber pieces this is music that presents Ravel at his most musically ambitious brought together for the first time in one large-format attractively-priced volume.