Scena della Opera (1997) for piano trio
Premier performance in Fayetteville, AR 2/99 by the Boston Mountain Chamber
Players: Jeongwon Ham, piano, Rico McNeela, violin, and Stephen Gates, cello.
Additional performance 3/99 by the same group.
Echo Fantasy (1989) for violin, cello and piano, (revised 2018)
Commissioned by Steve and Betsy Highland. Performances: 4/89 in Superior, WI
by Steve Highland, Betsy Highland and Robert Mueller; 3/90 in Lawton, OK (as
part of the regional meeting of the College Music Society); 3/92 in Ft. Worth, TX
(as part of the 1992 Region VI convention of the Society of Composers, Inc.); and
11/92 in Fayetteville, AR by the Ozark Chamber Players; 6/12 by the Interlochen
Ensemble.
ROBERT K. MUELLER
COMPOSER
PIANO TRIO
Scena della Opera
for Piano Trio (1997)
Premier performance in Fayetteville, AR 2/99 by the Boston Mountain ChamberPlayers: Jeongwon Ham, piano, Rico McNeela, violin, and Stephen Gates, cello. Additional performance 3/99 by the same group.
Echo Fantasy
for Violin, Cello, and Piano (1989, rev. 2018)
Scored for the standard piano trio, “Echo Fantasy” (1989, rev. 2018) is constructed as a kind of musical discourse on the opening two sonorities of Schubert’s “Der Doppelgänger.” Violin and cello present the Schubert quote fortissimo in an extremely high register, while the piano responds in a very low register, and quietly, representing the ‘evil double’ from Schubert’s song. A dialogue and struggle between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ elements ensue until eventually, the piano subsumes the whole texture as we realize that we are our own ‘Doppelgängers.’