On Monday of this week I presented my first bits of material of my second project. It consisted of a recorder trio. In my piece I am going to start with a trio style playing and then move the bass into 20 era swing style. What I presented so far is just the trio opening. Near the end there is a small trace of the bass moving away, but I just wanted to present a strong trio section to the class.
The class comments were very constructive, and I believe most enjoyed the sonorities of the recorders; especially those who never saw/heard the bass recorder before.
The big conclusion that the class came to was to add a harpsichord line. Unlike what the discussion in class concluded to, there are many examples in the baroque of trios that do not have a harpsichord line. Many are written for a trio of recorders, strings or other instruments, even the organ, that feature three independent lines and no harpsichord part. I did agree though, that adding a harpsichord part to my piece will greatly enhance it. Having a keyboard line will allow me to stretch the harmonies further into seventh, ninth and eleventh chords which would be very difficult with the three voices of the recorder trio.
So now I am working on adding the harpsichord part, and furthering the move away from the baroque, and into jazz.
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Mike: I believe that you had said something in class about using a baroque trio sonata as a model for your piece, a form that, as I believe any music dictionary will tell you, usually has four performers.
Below is an excerpt on this topic from Wikipedia.
Trio Sonata
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The trio sonata is a musical form which was particularly popular around the 17th century and the 18th century.
A trio sonata is written for two solo melodic instruments and basso continuo, making three parts in all, hence the name trio sonata. However, because the basso continuo is usually made up of at least two instruments (typically a cello or bass viol and a keyboard instrument such as the harpsichord), trio sonatas are typically performed by at least four musicians. The trio sonatas by Arcangelo Corelli (opus I, 1681, opus III, 1689) set an inspiring example.
The melody instruments used are usually both violins. A well-known exception is the trio sonata in Johann Sebastian Bach's The Musical Offering, which is for violin and flute.
Johann Sebastian Bach's trio sonatas for organ (BWV 525-530) combine all three parts on one instrument. Typically the right hand, left hand and pedals will each take a different part thus creating the same texture as in a trio. For obvious reasons, these six trios have been transcribed for four musicians in recent times. A further innovation of Bach was the creation of what are strictly trio sonatas, involving a concertante (obligato) harpsichord part and one melodic instrument, thus for two players. Known examples are the six sonatas for harpsichord and solo violin (BWV 1014-1019), three sonatas for harpsichord and viola da gamba (BWV 1027-1029) and the three sonatas for harpsichord and flauto traverso (BWV 1030-1032)
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