“[Dinuk] has a remarkable facility and flexibility. More specifically, what he’s able to do so expertly is articulate a mix of sounds and a mix of worlds. It’s exactly the kind of piece that appeals to me, and it’s the kind of direction I like to see composers who are writing for chamber music go in.”
– Roman Borys, the GRYPHON TRIO
“Some composers spend a lot of time thinking about theory and sitting at their computers. . . . some of the music they’re writing is a little bit on the analytical, academic side. It’s more based on theoretical principals than, ‘Is an audience going to like this? Is this going to be exciting? Is this going to be enjoyable? Is this going to be easily understood or am I going to be able to communicate something clearly?’ Or, is this something that you have to have five PhDs to understand? . . . [But] I think there’s an aesthetic that performing composers bring that I like very much. . . . [Wijeratne is] a top level conductor, and pianist who knows about performance and what goes into it. . . . [Love Triangle is] very exciting . . . and very evocative.”
– Jamie Parker, the GRYPHON TRIO
for the Gryphon Trio
Duration: 15-16 minutes
Instrumentation: violin, ‘cello’, piano
World premiere: Ottawa, Ontario, August 6th 2014
Commissioned by the Gryphon Trio, with generous support from the province of Nova Scotia.
Finalist for the Masterworks Prize (2015)
Composer’s notes:
“This single-movement piece entitled Love Triangle is not autobiographical, nor is it similar to the many concept-driven pieces I write. The music evolved rather rhapsodically from two distinctive features: the Middle Eastern-inspired melody heard in the strings at the outset, and the underlying rhythmic pattern inspired by a seven-beat Indian Classical ‘time cycle’. It also attempts to integrate a Western Classical sense of structure with three very improvisatory cadenzas from each instrument – the musicians and I are aiming for an effect akin to that glorious ‘out-of-time’-ness that occurs when an Arabic Oud solos over the unyielding fixed groove of the band. There are several other melodic and rhythmic devices that are Middle Eastern and North Indian.
The Gryphon Trio, with their staggeringly diverse resumé of collaborations, are no strangers to music that is about the meeting of cultures, or about blurred boundaries between what sounds improvised and what does not. I was utterly thrilled to have this opportunity to write for them!”
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