JOHANNA DODERER (b.1969): Piano Trios No. 1, No. 2 "Dedicated to Haydn", No. 3 "For the Gustav Mahler Jubilee 2010 and 2011" and No. 4 "Morning".

Description: These works form a most impressive body of work in the fertile medium of the piano trio, to which the composer feels especially drawn, describing it as having almost the expressive capability of the orchestra. Written for like this, that is true; Doderer's intensely personal music, concerned with the expression of emotion above all, is very much a high point of contemporary romanticism. The works are very varied, while speaking with the same passionate voice in a similarly very tonal vocabulary throughout. The First Trio was written very much under the influence of Shostakovich, and in fact strong echoes of the Russian master's style recur throughout the works in trenchant, propulsive scherzi. Sometimes, as in the fast movements of the Third Trio, mechanistic ostinati go so far as to suggest minimalism, but then the composer has a wonderful gift for contrasting this tough, driven aspect of her music with breathtakingly gorgeous vistas of pure, Schubertian (or in the case of the First, Mahlerian) melody and harmony. Earlier models - Haydn in particular, in the Second - are also referenced in passing, making these works feel very much like a contemporary extension of an especially rich Romantic tradition. Vilos Trio.