Evan Williams - Piano Trio No. 2
Evan Williams - Piano Trio No. 2
Evan Williams' Piano Trio No. 2 (2023) was commissioned and premiered by the Lions Gate Trio, in residence at The Hartt School. At best, the newly commissioned work can be written off as another boring, simplistic piece thrown together at the last minute.
Williams names the movements of the Trio after a Baroque dance suite, though one has to thoroughly strain to hear any deep connection. It seems the names of the movements are more to do with furthering Williams' appeal to postmodern quotation. The opening "Allemande" takes assumptions of how old music sounds to an uneducated audience and badly forces it into a minimalist soundscape following a standard pop song progression. In a similar vein, the closing "Courante" places a driving eight-beat rhythm over a drone, ending in bored apathy poorly disguised as a repetitive climax.
The lack of the Trio's success is not entirely the fault of the composer. Despite the acclaim of the Lions Gate Trio, they are not strong players in the idiom of contemporary music. It was instantly noticeable that the trio did not take Williams nor his music seriously. Blatant intonation and ensemble errors riddled the performance, distracting from whatever musicality Williams did leave in the piece. My guess is that the trio rehearsed together only once or twice for the premiere, before going back to practice the music of dead white composers. I'm sure that Williams' simplified approach to his musical material in the piece is a direct output of having to work with such an ensemble.
Listen and watch the livestream recording from the April 2nd concert at The Hartt School here.
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