For violin, clarinet and piano (1980, revised 1989)

Keith Humble's five Trios span his creative life from the 1950s as a student of René Leibowitz in Paris to shortly before his death in 1995. Trio no. 2 is the closest to the heritage of the Schoenberg/Webern school that formed a central (but not exclusive) part of Humble's musical personality. Influenced by the earlier models of Liszt and Schumann, this tradition dispenses with the more traditional chamber-music notion of 'slow' and 'fast' movements, and builds their contrasting expressive forces into one rich continuity in the interplay between instruments.

The earlier version of Trio no. 2 was performed once, in 1980, by Humble himself with two faculty colleagues at UC San Diego. The revised version, was premiered by Helen Ayres (violin), Craig Hill (clarinet) and Michael Kieran Harvey (piano) at an Astra concert on 10th November 2013 at North Melbourne Town Hall.

Edited by Allan Walker.