MATTHEW HINDSON (b.1968): Piano Trio, PAUL STANHOPE (b.1969): Piano Trio "Dolcissimo Uscignolo", NICHOLAS BUC (b.1982): Trailer Music, ROSS EDWARDS (b.1943): Piano Trio.

Description: Edwards' 1998 trio is typical of the composer, in its modally-inflected tonality and consonant melodiousness, with hints of a 'crossover' adoption of eastern rhythmic, melodic and phrase shapes. The underlying, tonal neo-romanticism of Edwards' style is very appealing and renders the work instantly accessible, while avoiding any suggestion of reactionary convention or cliché. An easy-going first movement is followed by a meditative slow movement and lively, dancing finale. The Stanhope incorporates reminiscences, or partial, elaborated quotations from a Monteverdi madrigal, in an inventive quarter-hour fantasia, mostly tonal in a more-or-less expanded sense - often less, as in the neoclassical and impressionistic episodes in the central section, or the final part, with its more explicit use of the madrigal material. Hindson's trio, like Edwards', is unequivocally of the concert tradition, but also asserts its stylistic individuality through the borrowing of certain elements from outside this tradition - in this case, specific types of popular music. Thus the persistent, pounding rhythmic drive of the opening perpetuum mobile or the hypnotic chord progressions and melodic simplicity of the second and third movements - the one lyrical, the other simultaneously energetic and sentimental. Buc's title refers to cinema trailers,which typically present encapsulated highlights of very different types of drama, action or comedy in short succession. Thus the piece consists of short 'scenes', each presenting the idea of a different mood or story, rapidly superseded by the next, all in a lively, attractive tonal language. Benaud Trio.