Lettres mêlées (2003)

Although he is best known for his organ works, Thierry Escaich – successor to Maurice Duruflé at St-Etienne-du-Mont in Paris and a renowned representative of the French tradition of organ improvisation – has made valuable contributions to several other areas of the repertoire, chamber music not least. One of the most widely performed of 21st-century piano trios, his Lettres mêlées (Mingled Letters) is, he says, a “homage” to three composers of particular importance to him: Brahms, Bach and Bartók.

‘While no quotation is featured in this tryptich,’ Escaich goes on to say, ‘one might seem to find in the first piece reminiscences of phrases with Brahms-like shapes and harmonies, even though they are purely imaginary in fact. On the other hand, structural elements associated with the three composers have been integrated with my own language – like, for example, the opposition of twos against threes so characteristic of Brahms’s rhythms and counterpoint. It is to be found throughout the first piece in the form of darkly lyrical snatches of waltz time which seek to impose themselves on more rigid and obstinate elements. Whence the impression of tempos or even whole textures superimposed on each other.

‘As for the Bach heritage, apart from a clear evocation of the chorale variation, it is translated in the second piece into superimposed layers of sorts of cantus developing at different speeds in the tradition of the canonic writing so dear to the Leipzig Cantor. These Lettres mêlées are also letters of the names of the three composers expressed in musical terms (like the famous B-A-C-H). The themes of each of the three movements are derived in that way, these letters forming both melodic and harmonic elements. The rhythmic character of each one (like the somewhat “jazzy” groups of semiquavers arising from the name of Bartók) emphasises its individuality.

‘Finally, it is the combination of all these elements that determines an important part of the formal evolution of the piece, going as far an incessant collision between the different themes (and also their integration with each other) in a lively, whirling finale.’