Those Secret Eyes

piano trio
2014

Duration 6’
Instrumentation violin, cello, piano
First Performance 22 February 2014, The Banff Centre, Alberta, Canada; The Albany Trio: Gemma Sharples (violin), Verity Evanson (cello), and Pippa Harrison (piano)
Commissioned by the Albany Piano Trio, recipients of the Richard Carne Junior Fellowship for Chamber Ensemble with Piano 2013/14

Charlotte has a worldwide, exclusive publishing agreement with Birdsong
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Further Performances
1.7.14 Royal College of Music, London; The Albany Trio
19.10.14 The Forge, Camden; The Albany Trio
6.6.15 York Late Music St. Saviourgate Unitarian Chapel, York; The Albany Trio
27.11.15 The University of Manchester; Vaganza Ensemble
14.08.16 BBC Proms Extra, Royal College of Art, London; The Albany Piano Trio
21.10.16 Stratford Upon Avon Music Festival; The Contemporary Consort
4.12.16 Aberystwyth UK; The Del Mar Piano Trio
19.05.17 St Barnabas Church, Ealing UK; Del Mar Piano Trio
24.08.17 Southwell Music Festival: The State Chamber, The Archbishop’s Palace, Southwell Minster, Nottinghamshire, UK; Sara Wolstenholme violin, Nathaniel Boyd cello, Libby Burgess piano
26.10.17 Resonanzraum St. Pauli, Hamburg; Boulanger Trio *German Premiere*
29.10.17 Radialsystem V, Berlin; Boulanger Trio
11.11.18 Munich Philharmonic Chamber music Series, Germany; Verdandi-Trio: IIona Cudek Violine, Elke Funk-Hoever Violoncello, Mirjam von Kirschten Klavier
7.12.18 The Kosciuszko Foundation, New York City, US; Merz Trio
14.12.18 Chamber Music Reading, Pennsylvania, US; Merz Trio
19.12.18 Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series, Chicago, US; Merz Trio
21.01.22 Ultraschall: Heimathafen Neukölln, Berlin; Boulanger Trio
27.7.22 West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge, UK; Alix Hamilton piano, Rose Hinton violin, Henrietta Hill viola, Andrew Power cello
26.06.23 aDevantgarde Festival, Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste, München; Phönix-3
11.07.23 Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival, Kuhmo Arts Centre, Kuhmo, Finnland; Storioni Trio

Those Secret Eyes is loosely inspired by Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and principally the play’s female characters: Lady Macbeth and the Witches. Set at night, it holds dark undercurrents of suspicion, sin, superstition, and mistrust. Governed by the principal themes of appearance and reality, and ambition and guilt, the piece is driven by a cruel, dry energy.

The scheming, tightly wound opening, strings playing single sul ponticello lines punctuated by the piano, seems as if they are conspiring together and daring each other. The plot thickens with the music becoming faster, more excitable and heavier. Even the melodic lines before the climax are unsettlingly cold and calculated. We wind up back to similar material seen at the opening, as if this short meeting has come to a close, the veiled agenda set.

This work may be performed alongside That Crazed Smile, which is loosely inspired by Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The plays are linked by themes of dream versus reality, and night versus day: problems arise in the day, and are relieved at night through dreaming.