When I began work on this trio I had intended it to be in one movement, but the music that has become the first movement took me far longer to write than I had expected, and was certainly not complete in itself. I was thinking of the direction that the rest of the work should take when the news of Elliott Carter’s death in November 2012 made me put the trio aside and write a little Berceuse for piano in his memory.
This unanticipated music became the basis of the second movement, and also influenced the mood of the fourth. The third movement takes over the brief scherzo-like episodes from the rather elaborate structure of the first movement (which is as long as the other three movements combined) to provide a lightning-fast ‘Scherzino’. The entire piece lasts around 14 minutes.
Nowhere to Hide was Commissioned by the Schubert Ensemble for its 30th Anniversary with funds from the John S Cohen Foundation, the Steel Charitable Trust, the PRS for Music Foundation and the Schubert Ensemble Trust. It was first performed by the Schubert Ensemble at the Cheltenham International Music Festival on July 5th 2013.
View the score (published by Faber Music)