Building the Trio Sonata Cycle | Preview: Cooper Grosscup

Leah Froyd
Aug 10
4 min read

Hello and welcome to our third installment of our previews leading up to our concert cycle, Building the Trio Sonatadebuting later this month.

This week’s preview happens to fall on our resident composer Cooper Grosscup’s birthday so please join us in celebrating him and his work!

Concert Schedule

Saturday, August 23rd

2:30 pm

Emerald Lounge

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Sunday, August 24th

2:30 pm

Faithful Fools

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Friday, August 29th

7:30 pm

Amador Club

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Sunday, August 31st

2:30 pm

Fisk House

Note: This salon is located up 2 flights of stairs.

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we suggest a voluntary donation of $35 as part of your reservation to help support future Insight projects and to keep current programming accessible to everyone.

Cooper Grosscup

Cooper has been with Insight since the beginning, both as a Speaker and one of our resident composers, alongside José Daniel Vargas. Insight regulars might have heard his violin & cello duo “Shine” as part of the Power of Three, or his setting of Sappho “I Confess” from our On the Same Page series. He has since graduated from San Francisco Conservatory and is back this season with the premiere of a work both old and new, Homage a Corelli, a love letter to the baroque composer.

Corelli was a rockstar in his time, and most known known for innovating the genres of the Concerto and Sonata, as well as for bringing Violin to the forefront as a solo instrument (himself belonging to the tradition of virtuoso player-composers). Though his output is quaint compared to the “great” composer, his influence on style as a bridge between the early and late Baroque cannot be understated. Corelli’s mastery expression, balance, and texture made his style the preeminent standard of Italian counterpoint. His mannerisms became tropes, the tropes became cliches, and his influence was so pervasive it is now almost taken for granted.

Here’s Cooper on Homage à Corelli:

“Corelli’s music has such a stunning clarity and pristine quality. It gave me inspiration during a difficult time in my life, recovering from Long Covid in 2021. I hadn’t written anything for almost a year, but I listened to Corelli’s trio sonatas religiously. I knew they contained some arcane secrets, and the desire to assimilate them gave me the energy to push through and compose this piece. In music, Homage is a tradition wherein a composer incorporates facets of another composers style into an original piece. The piece should both demonstrate an understanding of the subjects music, but also elaborate on it using the new composers distinct voice."

*The Duomo where Homage à Corelli was debuted in 2024.*

Listen below to the first premiere of this piece in Italy, as part of the Orvieto Musica festival. This was an amazing opportunity to have the piece performed in the exact kind of venue the Trio sonata was written for, and in Corelli’s home country!

In fact, until Corelli’s time only sacred vocal music was allowed in sacred spaces, as it represented the divine perfection and glory of the almighty. But for practical reasons, the Trio Sonata was invented as an instrumental adaption of the same goals. A tall order for the Maestro Corelli.

In this version, listen for the way the church organ and bassoon create a large “cloud” of sound that envelops the two violins: the church organ is able to achieve this overarching sound because its pipes are a part of the building fully utilizing the high ceilings and resonant stone and tile interior. The two violins dialogue on top, taking turns in the spotlight and imitating each other.

A major compositional element Grosscup took inspiration from both Corelli and the architecture of cathedrals was the use of dissonance — ie. a combination of notes that create tension when played together. The Baroque era had strict rules about consonance and dissonance that date back to before the renaissance. The craft of handling these lattices of tension and release, and the organization of it into musical material, is called counterpoint. Music that utilizes it is called polyphonic, and the ideal venues for polyphonic music are often churches, which were designed to accentuate the different movie voices and the beautiful harmonies and soundscapes they create.

While this was a major highlight for our trip to Italy, this upcoming series will be the first time the piece is premiered in its entirety.

For another Homage, check out Debussy’s “Homage a Rameau”, his shoutout to another great composer of the baroque era.

Reserve a seat to hear this piece and more insights from Cooper Grosscup!

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