SKU: AP.36-60783002

ISBN 9798888528655. UPC: 659359997112. English.

The piano trio version of LA MUSE ET LE POÈTE, Op. 132 was written by Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) in 1910 during a vacation to North Africa, and that version premiered at Queen's Hall on June 7, 1910, with Eugene Ysaÿe on violin, Jospeh Hollmann on cello, and the composer at the piano. Saint-Saëns transcribed the version for violin, cello and orchestra that same year, and the same two string players premiered that version on October 20 at the Sarah Bernhardt Theater in Paris under Fernand Le Borne. Despite the title (which was later added by the publisher to make it more marketable), no program is intended for the work and neither instrument represents either the muse or the poet. Saint-Saëns himself referred to the piece as a conversation between the two instruments instead of a debate between two virtuosos.

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SKU: PR.114418250

UPC: 680160640959. 9 x 12 inches.

In 2011, Barbara Garrop, my mother, commissioned me to write a piano trio in memory of Norman Garrop, my father, who passed away about thirty years ago. When I started brainstorming about topics for the piece, I found it difficult to recall many moments of my early life involving my father. Too many years had passed, and the memories that I could summon were of achild looking up to her father, not an adult relating to an equal. However, while collecting stories of my father from various family members, along with discovering a number of objects that had once belonged to him and that I had stored away in boxes decades ago, I began to realize that this piece wasn't so much about my father as it was about my re-discovering the man that he was: a loving husband and dad who cared deeply about his family and his passions (which included bike riding, collecting coins, strumming our guitar, playing baseball, watching football games, entertaining people, helping to run local theater and puppet productions, and carving objects out of wook); an accountant who dreamed of a better future: a treasurer of our local synagogue; an early advocate for computers (we owned an Apple II+); and a pranster with a great sense of humor. Ultimately, I decided to musically tell the story of my search for these memories. In the first movement (Without), a child calls out in a sing-song voice, searching for her lost parent. This search intesifies over the course of the movement through a series of themes, including a stepping motif in which a two-note progression steadily climbs higher, a pseudo-jewish folksong, and a passionate longing theme. The child's search becomes increasingly intense throughout the movement, calling out fervently and repeatedly to the parent; the movement ends in a moment of great tnesion and uncertainty. The second movment (Within) quietly opens with the lost parent finally answering, represented by a solo cello; the child (now personified by the violin) has found the parent within the sanctuary of her own heart. This movement highlights the joy and solemnity of this beautiful discovery. -S.G.