‘To say that Daron Hagen is a remarkable musician,’ wrote Ned Rorem in Opera News, ‘is to underrate him. Daron is music.’ Each of Hagen’s piano trios has a particular significance. The first, Trio Concertante, won Columbia University’s Bearns Prize for Chamber Music; the second, J’entends, was inspired by Nadia Boulanger’s final words ‘J’entends une musique san commencement et sans fin’ (‘I hear a music without beginning or end’), as well as by a Degas painting and Beethoven’s Great Fugue; the third, Wayfaring Stranger, recalls the memory of Hagen’s brother and the folk melody he so loved; and the fourth, Angel Band, pays tribute to the prodigious violinist Joyce Ritchie Strosahl.
Piano Trio No. 3, "Wayfaring Stranger"
1 I. Mazurka 03:42
2 II. Wayfaring Stranger 03:50
3 III. Fandango 03:20
4 IV. Aubade and Variations 07:15
Piano Trio No. 1, "Trio Concertante"
5 I. Ritornello - Rondo 04:03
6 II. Ritornello - Romanza 05:54
7 III. Ritornello - Passacaglia - Ritornello 04:43
Piano Trio No. 2, "J'entends"
8 I. Rondo in moto perpetuo 04:38
9 II. Interior - after Degas 05:24
10 III. Minute scherzo 01:32
11 IV. Quodlibet 05:29
Piano Trio No. 4, "Angel Band"
12 I. Morning 04:49
13 II. Waltz: The Violinist on the Pont Neuf 04:28
14 III. Rondo 04:13
15 IV. Blue Chaconne 03:04
16 V. Finale: Angel Band 05:35
