Trio for Oboe, Horn, and Piano

For Piano Trio

Trio for Oboe, Horn, and Piano is a chamber piano trio piece by Christopher Mesa. When composing this piece, I was less focused on having a central key, but instead trying to compose interesting textures. This piece is broken into three sections. The first section features a triplet feel piano accompaniment while the oboe and horn contrast in 8th notes. This section is polyrhythmic, however the slow tempo gives a more undefined pacing making the rhythms more expressive and less strict. The piano eventually shifts from its triplet accompaniment and into a more stable guitar-like fingerstyle accompaniment. In addition, this is where the second theme begins within the oboe and horn. As this first section concludes, it features the use of rolled chords in the piano, rhythmic displacement, and short rhythmic-like canons. The middle section is a short piano solo which integrates the previous two themes from the first section. Instead of entirely playing the previous themes, the piano instead plays short motifs that represent the most dominant sections from the themes. The last section begins at a moderate tempo that features an ostinato in the piano while the oboe and horn build a short motif on top of it. This eventually leads to a 16th note run between the piano and oboe. The oboe and horn split melodic phrases giving it a contrapuntal-like texture.

Live Performance