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Born in Shanghai, China, Bright Sheng began piano studies at the age of four with his mother. During the Cultural Revolution he worked in Qinghai for seven years as a pianist and percussionist in a folk music and dance troupe and avidly collected folk music. In 1978, when China's universities were reopened, he was one of the first students accepted by the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, where he earned his undergraduate degree in music composition. He moved to New York in 1982 and received his M.A. at Queens College and his D.M.A. at Columbia University. Among his important teachers was Leonard Bernstein, and Sheng now serves as the Leonard Bernstein Distinguished University Professor of Music at the University of Michigan where he teaches composition. He has been the recipient of numerous awards and prizes, including a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship--the so-called "Genius Award" in 2001.

In awarding Sheng the fellowship, the Foundation Committee proclaimed him an "innovative composer who merges diverse musical customs in works that transcend conventional aesthetic boundaries," and called him "a fresh voice in cross-cultural music. His music is noted for its lyrical, limpid melodies inspired by the folk music of China, particularly from the remote Chinese province of Qinghai; a Bartokian sense of rhythmic propulsion; and musical and theatrical gestures borrowed or derived from Chinese opera." In addition to composing, Sheng enjoys an active career as a conductor and concert pianist.

Sheng offers this description of his music: "Four Movements for Piano Trio is based on musical materials from My Song, a work for solo piano composed in 1988. In both works, I sought to develop my own concept of 'tonality' by unifying my mother tongue (Oriental classical and folk music) and father tongue (Western classical music). The folkloric style and prelude-like first movement is constructed through the use of heterophony, a device typical of Oriental music." Heterophony, a term used by Plato and adopted by modern musicologists, describes a primitive kind of polyphony in which two (or more) performers produce essentially the same melody with slight modifications in one part, mainly the omission or addition of some notes. The trio's second movement, Sheng explains, "is based on a humorous and joyful folksong from Se-Tuan. In the third movement'a savage dance' the melody grows through a series of 'Chinese sequences' (a term I use to describe a type of melodic development where each time a motive is repeated its duration is lengthened and its range widened). The last movement evokes a lovely nostalgia." Sheng provides metronome markings for each movement, but only the last movement bears a title, "Nostalgia."

Composed in 1808, this piano trio owes its German nickname (Geister) to what Robin Golding describes as "the bizarre, rhapsodic nature of its central Largo in D minor, with its impressionistic use of tremolando." Golding also notes that in a "remarkable coincidence" Beethoven sketched the movement on a notebook page where he had also jotted down some musical ideas for an opera on Shakespeare's Macbeth. Berger describes the overall structure of the Trio as an "arch shape" in which the "two outside movements are lucid and direct in style; the high point of the trio is the middle movement."

In Chamber Music, Ulrich emphasizes the economy of musical ideas in the trio's first movement. A tightly knit piece, it opens with two contrasting subjects, one powerful and fast, the other lyrical and sustained, out of which the entire movement is constructed. In the first six measures piano and strings announce the first subject, a powerful ascending figure in octaves. Immediately the cello introduces the second subject, a two-bar song, which is taken up by the violin, then the piano. After a short working out of the second subject in all three instruments, a series of powerful chords in the piano heralds the closing theme, stated by the piano over running scales in the violin and cello. The exposition ends on four repeated low notes, an ominous foreshadowing of the eerie second movement. The succeeding development is as long as the exposition; the recapitulation, owing to the new treatment of the material, is almost another development. Consequently, Ulrich sees the first movement as "essentially a long development section" in which emotional contrasts "are achieved by extreme changes in texture: a driving passage in unison or octaves gives way to tight contrapuntal imitations; a brief lyrical moment is interrupted by a savage outburst of sound." In an unusual move, Beethoven marks both the development and the recapitulation for repetition. The coda reverses the opening measures of the movement: piano and strings reiterate the lyrical second subject and the movement comes to a dramatic close in a shortened version of the brilliant opening figure, bringing the movement full circle.

In Image and Structure in Chamber Music, Ferguson describes the tempo of the Largo assai ed expressivo as "a slowness designedly oppressive." The movement, he says, opens with a "portentous" phrase in the strings, answered by the piano, which "in its whispered commentary on the strings' phrase" confirms "our sense of dread." Conflict emerges as the three instruments converse, the piano reaching a climax in a dramatic flourish that then descends to haunting tremolos over which cello and violin continue to dialogue with the opening phrase and response. Like the first movement, the Largo is constructed out of a minimum of material. Its "mysterious tremblings and passionate cries set opposite fragments of sublime melody," and its "thunderous chord progressions [set] opposite delicate ornaments" evoke, Ferguson says, "the spiritual cramp of tragedy."

The Finale portrays a warm sense of well being, beginning with a quiet ascending melody that recalls the opening flourish of the first movement, but this time in a less dramatic form. The playful first subject spins out over the next ten measures. The four-measure second subject arrives in the cello, is repeated in the violin, but is not heard in the piano where rapid scales and arpeggios accompany the strings. A series of powerful chords signals the end of the exposition, and the remainder of the movement works out the major ideas in sonata form, the whole a seamless romp through sunny landscapes. As the trio ends, the strings play unison low notes, recalling the ominous unisons of the first movement, but this time the piano dances above them, bringing the work to a close with a shimmering chromatic scale and declamatory chords.

In its standard four movement structure Ravel's piano trio is similar in design to the late eighteenth century sonata, but its language reflects the changes in musical vocabulary that were typical of the early years of the twentieth century. It is a work of lovely contrasts. In the second and fourth movements Ravel underpins his melodies with jazzy, uneven rhythms that echo Gershwin. Interestingly, Ravel met Gershwin a number of times and enjoyed listening to jazz with him in Harlem. When Gershwin admiringly requested to study with the French composer, Ravel wrote, "You might lose that great melodic spontaneity and write bad Ravel" (A Ravel Reader, ed. Orenstein). The second and fourth movements offer contrast to the hypnotic calm of the first movement and the pathos of the Passacaille.

The first movement opens this neoclassical trio in sonata form, but unlike the classical sonata form, the movement lacks complete closure. We are left floating at the end, the result of Ravel's innovative treatment of harmonic structures. Ravel derived the first theme of the movement, stated by the piano and then by the strings, from a popular folk dance from the Basque region of France near where he was born. This theme undergoes remarkable transformations as the movement progresses.

The second movement is like a scherzo in character and form. Its title refers to the Malayan pantum, a poem made up of stanzas of four verses. The second and fourth lines are repeated to create the first and third lines of successive stanzas. Ravel parallels this form in musical terms in his Pantoum, and as Triple Helix pianist Lois Shapiro notes, he accomplishes this "through the interleaving of a glittering and biting staccato theme with a lovely waltz-like lyrical theme, each of which maintains its separate identity."

The third movement takes the form of a majestic passacaglia in the style of Bach, its melody subjected to continuous variation. In Ravel's treatment, the theme appears first in the bass of the piano; each successive variation raises the theme in pitch and increases the textual density of the movement. After it reaches a climax in the seventh variation, the music descends; in the tenth variation the piano alone plays the theme, bringing the musical structure full circle.

Ravel adheres to the standard classical sonata cycle procedure of using the last movement to clarify and ground elements from other movements. For example, the two main themes in the Finale recall the rhythmic patterns of the first two movements. The music builds to a climax of textures and dynamics that surpasses anything heard in the preceding movements. Lois Shapiro describes the drama of the music: "From the darkness of the third movement, we are immediately stunned by the luminous whir of high string tremolos that provide a magical, sonorous aura for the crystalline piano melody . . . . Orchestral effects and brilliant instrumental writing combine with remarkably skillful use of counterpoint to create a tonal palette of tremendous range and color."