ABSTRACT
The String Trio is the third of John McCabe's seven trios to date and perhaps his finest chamber work of the 1960s. Indeed, although the composer has moved on stylistically, all the familiar fingerprints are present and it remains one of his most impressive chamber music utterances, running to 23 incident-packed minutes. The single chamber combination McCabe has employed most often is the string quartet, with five numbered quartets beginning with the Partita of 1959–1960 and culminating at present with the Fifth in 1989, along with the unnumbered single-span Caravan. Since he had successfully mastered larger forms, it might seem surprising, then, that the Second Quartet should run out to well under a quarter-hour in performance. McCabe composed Star-Preludes for Erich Gruenberg, with whom he enjoyed many years as a duo partner, and they premiered the work in Los Angeles in April 1978.
