ERNEST SAUTER (b.1928): String Trio, Ballade for String Trio, String Trio No. 3 "3 mouvements contrastés".

Description: Sauter's trios were written between 1998 and 2007, for the present ensemble, and premiered in the composer's summer music festival of classical and contemporary music. The first trio's language is freely atonal, with an emphasis on lyrical linearity. The central movement has a somewhat improvisatory atmosphere, while the last is a rapid perpetuum mobile. The Ballade continues the improvisatory feel of the first, but with a greater sense of richness to the harmony, which revolves around tonal centers to a greater extent than in the earlier work. The third seems to have absorbed some French atmosphere from the composer's long residence near Avignon, with some very impressionistic textures and melodic lines to offset Sauter's characteristically tough, discursive vocabulary. Constantly changing meter is also a common thread running through these works, adding rhythmic vitality and unpredictability to the composer's language. Deutsches Streichtrio.