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Four Movements for Piano Trio was commissioned and world premiered by the Peabody Trio in 1990. It was recorded by Shanghai Quartet in 2002. This album, includes Bright Sheng's String Quartet No. 3, String Quartet no.4, and Three Songs for Pipa and Violoncello, is available to order or download at Amazon or iTunes.
The score is available to order at Amazon or Hal Leonard
Four Movements for Piano Trio was commissioned by the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation for the Peabody Trio, winner of the Naumburg Chamber Music Award. The work was first performed by the Peabody Trio at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, New York City on 24 April 1990. The folkloric style and prelude-like first movement of Four Movements for Piano Trio is constructed through the use of heterophony, a device typical of Asian music. The second movement of the work is based on a humorous and joyful folk song from Se-Tsuan. In the third movement, a savage dance, the melody grows through a series of “Chinese sequences” (my own term to describe a type of melodic development each time the initial motive is repeated, consequently lengthening its duration and widening the tessitura). The last movement evokes a lonesome nostalgia.
—Bright Sheng
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