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Apathetic Trio, Op. 3
for orchestra
1. Tedium – Moderato tedioso
2. Lethargy & Denial – Adagio letargico / Veloce (scoppi di diniego) 3. Futile Frustration – Allegro molto con frustrazione inutile
4. Frivolity – Allegro frivolo
3. Lethargy & Denial – Adagio letargico / Veloce (scoppi di diniego) 5. Aimlessness – Allegro girovagando
6. Nonchalance – Allegretto indifferente e insolente
This suite was written as a musical burlesque. Its composition began as a trio for clarinet, horn and piano in 1973 with two movements representing tedium and nonchalance, but during the rest of that decade it developed into a six-sided character study of apathy. The whole trio was tidied up as a chamber work when the composer retired from the University of Leeds in 2020, and three years later this orchestral version was made.
The first movement, ‘Tedium’, is based on two ideas remarkable for their complete lack of musical interest. In fact, the composer felt the opening motive was so astonishingly dull that he wisely refrained from subjecting it to any variation for fear of provoking interest. The second movement evokes melancholic torpor, punctuated by outbursts of denial. The mercifully brief third movement is given over to a minute of pointless frustration. The fourth movement exhibits its frivolity by the mocking use of ‘serious’ compositional techniques such as the twelve-note row and canon, and the fifth movement is an exercise in going nowhere quickly. In the ‘devil may care’ sixth and final movement, the clarinet gropes after keys in slipshod fashion while the horn blows shameless raspberries. The end of the trio comes as a surprise, the music having captured in less than fifteen minutes a suggestion of eternity.
Details
Todmorden
United Kingdom