Description

Preface

This work was indeed composed during a time when the word triage was used almost
exclusively in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, that was not the main reason for naming the piano trio this way. Years earlier, I had seen a film bearing this title – the storyline was set in a war context – and even back then, the theme had already left a deep impression on me. At the time, other personal
reasons also played a role.

Triage portrays the tension that arises from the emotional rollercoaster of making decisions: highs, lows, contrasts, doubts. From the very beginning of our lives, we „triage“.

In art, in music – especially in composition – triage is a constant companion of the creative process: What comes next? What do I leave out? Which direction do I take? Which instrument is next? And each time, something is left behind.

Translated into the act of making music together, this is chamber music in its purest form. No one dominates; everything depends on each other. But if we take the term further into the artistic realm, the final result is the unity of the piece – as opposed to reality.

Because I don’t want to compromise the abstraction of music, not just in this work but in my music in general, this is not programmatic music. The audience hears Triage only once – we always hear music only once – and that one time must be enough to evoke lasting impressions.

Zadig Trio:

„Triage“ by Rafael Catalá is a work that disrupts our sense of orientation. Its incisive
language — at times raw, at others evanescent — immerses us in a living, unpredictable
sonic material. To play this music is to accept losing one‘s footing, to allow the unexpected to emerge.

Rafael Catalá