Haas Trio - OB/BSN/PN

Haas Trio
for oboe, bassoon, and piano
by Simon A. Sargon (1938-2022) - American composer, pianist, and music educator of Israeli and Indian descent This Trio, commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in honor of principal bassoonist Wilfred Roberts, was composed during the Spring of 2005. 
The outer movements of the Trio are light-hearted. The first movement, in traditional Sonata form, presents a jaunty, carefree opening theme followed by a march-like second theme. The entire Exposition is consistently up-beat; however, the development section alters the mood when the second theme suddenly morphs into a funeral march. That transformation leads to a further disintegration, and ultimately a dissonant thematic meltdown, in which everything comes to a total halt. Little by little, however, the first theme reasserts itself, gaining strength and dissipating the nightmarish interruption, so that the movements ends with the same high spirits in which it began.
The second movement, Im Memoriam Karl Haas (Andante Espressivo) is the emotional core of the Trio. Karl Haas is well known as one of the most eloquent spokesmen for classical music in the 20th century. His syndicated program, "Adventures in Good Listening" educated music lovers, both professional and amateurs, around the globe. Karl, who had an encyclopedic knowledge of classical music, commented on all aspects of it with a civilized clarity that was never patronizing. 
I first met Karl in the 1980s when he came to Dallas to concertize on behalf of the local FM station. Karl invited me to play some 4-hand selections with him on his program, and that musical collaboration turned into a personal friendship.
I was deeply touched when Karl decided to devote a full hour program to my music, thus giving me world-wide exposure. His belief in me, as well as his support and encouragement of my work were deeply meaningful to me. News of his passing reached me as I was working on this Trio. I was moved to write a musical eulogy for him, in which my affection and respect for him as a human being, a musician, and one of the great humanists of our time is expressed.
After the intense lyric emotion of the second movement, the last movement returns to a kind of impudent humor. The ideas follow one another rapidly, with a hint of jazz rhythms in the interchanges between the winds. At the height of the movement, just before the coda, a them of the second movement's eulogy is restated. Just as a nightmare was the flip side of the first movements' playfulness, sorrow is the reverse of the musical bantering of the last.
--Simon A. Sargon