Stormwatch Stormfall by Peter Maxwell Davies was commissioned by the Aventa Ensemble with assistance from the Scottish Arts Council.

Six Pieces for Horn Violin and Piano by Hans Abrahamsen. Programme Note  My ’6 Pieces for horn violin and piano’ was written in 1984 as a commission from the Danish Radio for a concert where Ligeti’s Horn Trio should receive its Danish premiere played by Danish musicians. My trio is based on my work ’Studies for Piano’. While I wrote these studies I tried to ’conjure up’ instrumental parts inside the piano movement. When I received the commission for a horn trio I turned to six of the studies and deepened them by ’screening them’ so that their partsand moods appeared in a clearer way. Furthermore I changed the order of the movements so a new unity appeared beginning with a steadyly hesitating ’Serenade’ in slow-motion followed by the ’Arabesque’ which hardly gets started before it stops. Then ’Blues’ a melancholy melody and ’Marcia Funebre’ like a fossilized picture with a dramatic threatening outburst ending with a quiet but majestic melody in violin and horn a melody that disappears in the chords of the piano. Before the last movement ’For the Children’ is a large ’Scherzo misterioso’. Hans Abrahamsen

This piece has a broad moderately paced first movement which leads to a sparkling scherzo which in turn gives way to an extremely sparsely textured movement that features the horn and its less frequently used techniques. The whole piece turns on this movement then a couple of crisp arpeggios act as a premature cinematic transition into the big finale the longest and the technically most demanding movement of the piece.