Harp Trio
for flute, viola, and harp (1989)
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National Federation of Music Clubs Convention, Fort Worth, Texas
The Debussy Trio
II. Melodia - lento moderato
III. Minute scherzo
IV. Chorale and passacaglia
Gloria Korngold writes, 'In the Harp Trio, each movement focuses on an individual instrument. The composer envisions the viola in a virtuoso role in the first movement and the flute in a soaring melodic line in the second movement. The three movements join in the 'Minute Scherzo,' which is whimsical and tightly integrated [it is, in fact, an exact musical pallindrome which lasts precisely sixty seconds]. The harp presents the 'Chorale' in the fourth movement after which the three instruments come together in the 'Passacaglia' which brings the work to an ethereal close.'
The composer writes, 'the trio was completed on 23 August 1988 in New York City; a few revisions were made at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in February of 1989, and then still more (final) revisions made during August of 1989 in New York City.' The compositional methodology is that of collage -- overlapping elements, juxtaposing them, having three or four things occuring at once. The synthetic scale (central to Hagen's works for over twenty years) of A-Bb-C#-D-Eb-F#-G underpins most of the work, although in the final movement it is 'smoothed out' into the slightly less chromatic scale Ab-Bb-C#-D-Eb-F#-G#. 'Perhaps,' mused the composer in 1989, 'the piece is about living through another New York August.' Whatever the composer's stated intent, the work that resulted is pensive, serious, and strangely elegaic.
First performed on 28 April 1990 at the National Federation of Music Clubs' Convention in Fort Worth, Texas by the Debussy Trio of Los Angeles, the Harp Trio was commissioned by the Debussy Trio Foundation and the National Federation of Music Clubs.