Wednesday, 26 November 2025

Lutyens: String trio

Day 330

Elizabeth Lutyens: String trio op 57

Endymion ensemble

Elizabeth Lutyens was one of the first English composer to embrace serialism - in fact she claimed that she had independently discovered serialism technique without any influence from the second Viennese school. She seems to have been a difficult individual to cope with and she was not popular within the English musical community - in return she was the person who christen the pastoral music of the English tradition’ the cowpat school’.

Webern is the obvious influence on this string trio from 1963 - indeed on the page the score looks almost exactly like a late Webern piece. In fact it is slightly more lyrical and less disjointed than Webern’s music. I found the first four movements quite attractive but the longer (comparatively - this is not a long piece) - last movement seemed much tougher and aggressive. 

Lutyens made a living from writing scores for horror films. I don’t think that I have seen of them - perhaps I will make a point of watching one of them next time it is film night.

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