Edwards, Ross (b. 1943) – Piano trio

My program note from the “Landscapes” performance

Piano trio

Ross Edwards (b. 1943)

i. Allegretto

iii. Allegro assai

Ross Edwards was born and raised in Sydney. He studied composition at the Elder Conservatorium, Adelaide, and in London, working under Richard Meale and Sir Peter Maxwell-Davies, as well as serving a kind of apprenticeship with Peter Sculthorpe in Sydney during his holidays. Although trained in avant-garde modernism, Edwards began to move away from that style, increasingly finding inspiration in the natural environment. For several years in the 1970s, due to a heavy teaching load, he composed little, but said of this time: “….my only serious listening was done sitting in the bush, listening more carefully than most of us get a chance to do to the natural sounds. It helped me come to terms with the fact that all of the world’s music must have originated, in some way from the sounds of nature… and later, when I started writing again, it was especially the insect patterns and rhythms I’d heard that helped me.”

This piano trio, dedicated to Ross Edwards’ wife, Helen, was commissioned by the 1999 Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition. Tonight we are playing the outer two movements, Allegretto and Allegro assai. Edwards described Allegretto as having musical ties to his Guitar Concerto (1995), and that he had in mind ‘sunlight sparkling on the Arafura Sea, north of Australia.’ It is in a loose sonata form, with coda, the first theme consisting of a flowing, irregular waltz (mainly in the piano score) in E aeolian mode, transitioning over drones into what we envision as an ecstatic, morning bird-call string duet in G major (second theme). The development begins a little like the opening theme, but soon moves to E mixolydian mode, with a version of the bird-call duet over a jaunty bass piano ostinato (reminding me of frogs). The ostinato fades into coda material in C major, with a ripple effect between the instruments. A reprise of the first and second themes is followed by another rendition of coda material, in G major, but here as a piano solo.

The third movement, Allegro assai, is one of Edwards’ well-known Maninyas – a ‘nonsense word’ coined by Edwards to describe his highly rhythmic, fast but irregular ‘Australian dance chant’ pieces. In G Lydian mode, the metre constantly changes, and the texture is a mixture of what reminds me of squawking cockatoos (in the piano) and a wild barn dance of sorts between the strings, together with drones and sounds like clicking insects. The drama gradually builds to a climax, featuring an arpeggiando spanning the entire piano, unexpectedly landing in E flat major.