Trio Cavany (2007)

Tower’s dialogue-rich ensemble pieces demand as much of the musicians as the solo scores do. The Trio Cavany (2007) opens with a moment of quiet desolation, for solo violin and then violin and cello, and evolves into an unflaggingly intense meditation with a sober piano underpinning.

Trio Cavany, was named after the home states of its commissioners: the La Jolla Music Society in California, the Virginia Arts Festival and the Chamber Music Society. Opening with a quiet three-note cell on violin, the work moves through five distinct sections in a continuous 20-minute span. A slow, meditative passage for violin and cello leads to a surging section driven by prickly piano rhythms; a brusque scherzo is followed by an icy slow movement and an agitated finale.

Like the best of Ms. Tower’s output, Trio Cavany was expertly wrought, full of character and instantly communicative. The violinist Cho-Liang Lin, the cellist Gary Hoffman and the pianist André-Michel Schub offered a vigorous, persuasive account.

If future listeners respond as enthusiastically as Friday's audience, the piece has an excellent chance of becoming one of Tower's stars.

Co-commissioned with New York's Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Virginia Arts Festival, Trio La Jolla was dedicated to violinist and SummerFest music director Cho-Liang Lin, who performed it with cellist Gary Hoffman and pianist Andre-Michel Schub during "SummerFest: Premieres & Reprises" at the Stephen and Mary Birch North Park Theatre.

From the soft, slow opening for solo violin to the loud, emphatic ending that relied on all three instruments, the 19-minute-long performance could hardly have been more caring or committed. The performers conveyed the trio's power and subtlety, its dark-hued intensity as well as its supple rhythms, which sometimes changed meter every measure.

Hoffman emphasized the drama of leaping cello chords. Schub made swirling sixteenth-notes sound effortless. And Lin gave sustained high notes a mysterious quality that was almost magical.