Infinity Miniatures (2025) | Piano Trio

Infinity Miniatures is a piece composed for the RWCMD’s Lanzino Trio, a competition level piano trio that has performed works by the likes of Franz Schubert and John Ireland. Infinity Miniatures was written just months after the group was formed, and reflected their experience playing Romantic repertoire, but also aimed to broaden their horizons into microtonality.

This piece was composed to reflect a spiritualistic journey of three parts: heaven, purgatory, and hell. The movements are named as such to reflect their counterpart, with references to Greek and Jewish, and Christian eschatology intertwined in the nomenclature. The first miniature, Cappricio Elysium, refers the Greek mythological Elysian Fields, a realm of the afterlife located on the western edge of the Earth that admitted only those chosen by the gods, the righteous, and the heroic. The second miniature, The Valley of Hinnom, references the Christian and Jewish version of Purgatory. The Valley of Hinnom, also known as Gehenna, is a theological toponym that has many connotations, but is interpreted in the piece to refer to the Jewish and Christian purgatorial place of divine punishment and cleansing of sin. The final movement, Hadal Waltz, is an energetic dance movement. The word Hadal, meaning ‘the deepest part of the ocean’ refers to the Greek kingdom of the Underworld and the god of the Underworld himself. The movement paints an energetic image of the Greek God of the underworld, caricaturing him as a cunning and guileful character.

Finally, note that the number three is present throughout the piece, a number that is central to spiritual cultures, from the biblical holy trinity to the symbolic rituals of the freemasons. For example, the number three is reflected in the instrumentation, movement count, and the time signature shifts between 6/8, 9/8, 12/8 and 15/8 in the final movement.