Tom Coult’s horn trio Two Nocturnes and a Maze makes its UK debut at the North York Moors Chamber Music Festival on 20 August, performed by Ben Goldscheider, Benjamin Baker, and Daniel Lebhardt. It appears as part of their ‘Nightfall’ programme, alongside works by Schumann, Beethoven, Schubert, Kurtág and Widmann.
The 17½ minute work is cast in three movements, the two nocturnes of the title framing a skittish, uneasy central ‘Maze’. Coult initially composed the work with the setting of its world premiere in mind – the Alpine valleys of Musikdorf Ernen, where it debuted with Daniel Bard (violin), Alec Franck-Gemmill (horn), and Alasdair Beatson (piano), as part of Coult’s residency in 2022.
“I couldn’t really resist evoking the alphorn”, Coult says. “Nocturne I opens with the sound of solo horn, playing a melody on its natural harmonics. This melody becomes a bit of an obsession, repeating in various guises, but also orbiting around two other ingredients: more mechanical contributions from the violin, and solemnly descending chords in the piano.”
Two Nocturnes and a Maze borrows some of its material from Coult’s other works. The opening bars of the central Maze come from the last bars of a movement of his 2020 Violin Concerto Pleasure Garden. “The aim here”, Coult says, “was to make listening to the piece a bit like navigating a hedge maze – you often seem to return to the start, and try to retrace your steps, but it’s not quite how you remember it”. The final Nocturne reworks material from the first and seventh scenes of Coult’s acclaimed chamber opera Violet.
The trio was praised by the Critics’ Circle when awarding Coult the Young Talent prize in 2023, describing a piece that “achieved the feat of sounding familiar, Romantic and entirely original all at once”.