Prometheus Trio premiere explores bipolar disorder

A world premiere, with the composer on hand, and a last-minute encore change created more than the customary excitement at a Prometheus Trio concert Monday evening.

Playing at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music, the trio was joined by New Berlin-native Daron Hagen for the premiere of his Piano Trio No. 5. Hagen, who now lives in upstate New York, introduced the piece.

According to Hagen, the piece’s four movements use the legend of Icarus to “explore the rapidly changing emotional and psychological inner life of a person coping with bi-polar disorder.”

The opening movement juxtaposes disparate, unsettling sounds of a hospital’s ICU, while the piece’s remaining three movements capture some of the emotional waves and troughs common to the disorder.

The piece’s second movement is built of tender melodies and warm, beautifully layered sounds. A melancholy, somehow nostalgic third movement gives way to sunny, hopeful final movement, complete with sprawling, sweeping, grand passages.

The trio of violinist Margot Schwartz, cellist Scott Tisdel and pianist Stefanie Jacob, gave Hagen’s piece a polished, focused reading, full of emotional turmoil and depth, handling the four movements as vivid, meaningful, related miniatures.

The program’s second half was filled with an expressive, richly textured performance of Dvorak’s Trio in B-flat Major.

The four-movement Dvorak is a big piece, both in length and dynamic and emotional range. The musicians dug into it with relish, sounding a bit like they were having an animated, intense conversation with a dear old friend.

A few pages of music that didn’t make it to the concert hall led to an encore selected from the WCM library. With an early unsettled moment quickly behind them, the players gave an elegant, tasteful performance of the “Larghetto” movement of Mozart’s Piano Trio in B-flat, K. 502.