1800-1849 Piano Trio

Question 0

How many works for piano trio did Beethoven write? Name at least three opus numbers.

Answer 0

Beethoven wrote 9 works titled Piano Trio, two sets of variations and three separate movements for piano trio.

• Hess 47: Allegro con brio in E-flat major for Piano Trio
• Hess 48: Allegretto in E-flat major for Piano Trio (c. 1790–1792)
• WoO 38: Piano Trio in E-flat major (1791)
• WoO 39: Allegretto in B-flat major for Piano Trio (1812)
• Opus 1: Three Piano Trios (composed 1793; published 1795)
  
  • No. 1: Piano Trio No. 1 in E-flat major
  • No. 2: Piano Trio No. 2 in G major
  • No. 3: Piano Trio No. 3 in C minor
• Opus 11: Piano Trio in B-flat major (“Gassenhauer”) (1797)
• Opus 121a: Kakadu Variations, for Piano Trio (Variations on “Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu”) (1803)
• Opus 44: Variations on an original theme in E-flat major (composed 1792; published 1804)
• Opus 63: Piano Trio in E-flat major (1806) (arrangement of Op. 4)
• Opus 70: Two Piano Trios (1808)
  
  • No. 1: Piano Trio in D major (“Ghost”)
  • No. 2: Piano Trio in E-flat major
• Opus 97: Piano Trio in B-flat major (“Archduke”) (1811)

Question 1

Name 6 piano trios ca.1800-1849.

Answer 1

1. Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Trio in D “Ghost”, Op.70, No.1 (1808)
2. Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Trio No.7 in B-flat “Archduke”, Op.97 (1811)
3. Frédéric Chopin: Piano Trio in g, Op.8 (1828-9)
4. Franz Schubert: Piano Trio No. 1 in B-flat, D898 (1827)
5. Franz Schubert: Piano Trio No. 2 in E-flat, D929 (1828)
6. Felix Mendelssohn: Piano Trio No.1 in d, Op.49 (1839)

Question 2

How many piano trios did Schubert write? Name the numbered ones.

Answer 2

Schubert wrote two numbered piano trios and two unnumbered works titled piano trio.

• Piano Trio No. 1 in B-flat, D898 (1827)
• Piano Trio No. 2 in E-flat, D929 (1828)
• Piano Trio in B-flat “Sonatensatz”, D28 (1812)
• Piano Trio in E-flat “Notturno” (Adagio only), D897 (1828?)

Question 3

How many piano trios did Mendelssohn write? Name them.

Answer 3

Mendelssohn wrote 2 piano trios.

• Piano Trio No.1 in d, Op.49 (1839)
• Piano Trio No.2 in c, Op.66 (1845)

Question 4

How many sets of variations for piano trio did Beethoven write? Name the most famous set, and list at least a few notable details about it.

Answer 4

Beethoven wrote 2 sets of variations for piano trio.

• Opus 121a: Kakadu Variations, for Piano Trio (Variations on “Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu”) (1803)
• Opus 44: Variations on an original theme in E-flat major (composed 1792; published 1804)

Ludwig van Beethoven: Kakadu Variations for Piano Trio (Variations on “Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu”), Op.121a (1803)

• The work is notable for the contrast between its solemn introduction and the lightweight variations that follow.
• “Kakadu Variations” is the nickname given to Ludwig van Beethoven’s variations for piano trio on the theme “Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu” by Wenzel Müller.
• The variations were published in 1824 as Opus 121a, the last of Beethoven’s piano trios to be published. Despite the late publication date (three years before the composer’s death), the Kakadu variations are often described as an early work, thought to have been composed around 1803 and left unpublished for the next two decades. Although the first full autograph dates from 1816, the earlier composition date is supported by correspondence in 1803 from Beethoven’s brother Karl, which appears to describe the Kakadu variations, and by the fact that the composer himself later described it as “among my early works”.
• However, the Kakadu variations have a more complex history. The 1816 autograph reflects a substantial reworking of an earlier draft, including a major revision of the introduction. Since it was not published until 1824, it is even possible that Beethoven made further revisions at the time of publication. Direct evidence for this comes, among other elements, in the form of the extremely energetic and tight counterpoint of the double fugue in G minor that makes up the transition from variation X to the allegretto finale. The presence of such tight and dramatic fugal writing is one of the hallmarks of Beethoven’s late style.
• While the central part of the work is typical of Beethoven’s early style, the introduction and, to a lesser extent, the final variation display a maturity and depth that is characteristic of Beethoven’s late period.

Question 5

How many piano trios did Schumann write? Which is the most famous?

Answer 5

Schumann wrote 3 piano trios and one Fantasiestücke for piano trio.

• Op. 88, Fantasiestücke for piano trio (1842)
• Op. 63, Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor (1847) - most famous
• Op. 80, Piano Trio No. 2 in F (1847)
• Op. 110, Piano Trio No. 3 in G minor (1851)

Question 6

Discuss the influence of Archduke Rudolph on Beethoven’s life.

Answer 6

• Archduke Rudolph, youngest son of Emperor Leopold II and youngest brother of Emperor Franz, was Beethoven’s greatest patron.
• Rudolph was himself a first-class musician. He was an excellent pianist and competent composer. He was the only pupil Beethoven ever took on as student of composition.
• In 1809, when Beethoven accepted an invitation from King Jerome of Westphalia (brother of Napoleon Bonaparte) to become Kapellmeister at the court in Kassel, Archduke Rudolph persuaded Prince Lobkowitz and Prince Kinsky that they should pay Beethoven a guaranteed annual salary of 4000 florins - Rudolph contributing 1500 fl., Lobkowitz 700 fl., Kinsky 1800 fl. - on the sole condition that he abandon plans to move to Kassel and remain resident in Vienna for the rest of his life.
  Beethoven agreed. Then, after the Austrian currency was devalued fivefold in 1811, Kinsky was thrown from his horse and died in 1812, and Lobkowitz went bankrupt and was forced to flee from Vienna in 1813…..Archduke Rudolph increased his payment at each stage to ensure Beethoven did not suffer financially.
• In gratitude, Beethoven dedicated far more compositions to Rudolph than to anyone else - including the Fourth and Fifth (Emperor) Piano Concertos, the Piano Sonatas “Les Adieux”, Hammerklavier and opus III, the Violin Sonata opus 96, the Archduke Piano Trio (named for Rudolph), the Missa Solemnis and the Grosse Fuge.
• “Les Adieux” was specifically composed for Rudolph when he and the Imperial royal family were forced to leave Vienna in the face of the advancing French army in 1809. The first movement - Das Lebewohl [the Farewell] - was composed before Rudolph left; the second - Die Abwesenheit [the Absence] - was composed during his exile. Beethoven told him he would not compose the third and final movement - Das Wiedersehen, [the Welcome Home] - until the Archduke returned to Vienna, which he duly did in 1810.
• Archduke Rudolph asked Beethoven in March 1819 to compose a piece to be played at his enthronement as Archbishop of Olmütz a year later.
• Beethoven embarked on the mighty sacred work, Missa Solemnis, which he didn’t complete until 1823 - three years after Rudolph’s enthronement!

Question 7

Piece: piano trio by Beethoven, earlier famous.

Answer 7

• Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven
• Title: Piano Trio in D “Ghost”, Op.70, No.1
• Date: 1808
• 3 movements: Allegro vivace e con brio (3/4, D major)
• Largo assai ed espressivo (2/4, D minor)
  Presto (4/4, D major)
• The piece is notable for it’s violent opening and for it’s
  mysterious and “ghostly” second movement. The second movement is thought to have been originally intended for his incidental music to Macbeth, which he was writing around the same time.
• Ignaz Schuppanzigh, Josef Linke, and Beethoven gave the first performance of both works.
• Both Op.70 trios were composed during Beethoven’s stay at Countess Marie von Erdödy’s estate, where he had completed his Symphony No. 5 the previous summer, and both trios are dedicated to her for her hospitality.
• He wrote the two trios immediately after finishing his Pastoral Symphony No. 6 and the A major Cello Sonata, Op.69. Beethoven seemingly made a conscious decision in these years, post Fidelio and Eroica, to revisit the principal genres of his earlier chamber music (violin sonatas, cello sonatas, piano trios, and string quartets, though not string trios or wind chamber music).
  These pieces are representative of Beethoven’s “Middle” stylistic period, which went from roughly 1803 to 1812
• had no dependable source of income at the time.
• The two trios attracted the attention of one of the most influential music critics of the early 19th century, E.T.A. Hoffman, whose writings inspired many later composers and compositions.

Question 8

Piece: piano trio by Beethoven, later famous.

Answer 8

• Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven
• Title: Piano Trio No.7 in B-flat “Archduke”, Op.97
• Date: 1811
• 4 movements
• The trio was written late in the composer’s so-called “middle period”. It is the last of his piano trios.
  He created a new world of sound, almost symphonic in weight and texture, pointing forward to the rich tone colours of 19th century Romanticism, sounds which by then he himself could imagine, but hear only partially.
• Ignaz Schuppanzigh, Josef Linke, and Beethoven gave the first performance, as his deafness continued to encroach upon his ability as a performer. Louis Spohr wrote of the performance: “In forte passages the poor deaf man pounded on the keys until the strings jangled, and in piano he played so softly that whole groups of notes were omitted, so that the music was unintelligible unless one could look into the pianoforte part. I was deeply saddened at so hard a fate.” After a repeat of the work a few weeks later, Beethoven did not appear again in public as a pianist.
• It is commonly referred to as the Archduke Trio, because it was dedicated to Archduke Rudolph of Austria, an amateur pianist who was a patron, friend, and both piano and composition student of Beethoven.
• A feature of the work, the height of Beethoven’s achievement in the genre, is the relatively low range of the violin part and the relatively high tessitura of the cello writing.
• 1. Mantra-like repetitions characterize this spacious and noble movement. Dynamics are restrained, the formal structure is unusually clear, and the tempo is leisurely, so there is plenty of time to savour hemiolas, off-beat stresses, textural nuances, and other matters of detail. In general, the piano is more independent than in Beethoven’s previous piano trios, and the strings are more closely allied to each other, joining forces to create experimental tone-colours, such as the extended pizzicato duet or the swaying four-part chordal string textures. The expansive first movement is introduced by the piano with the first subject, echoed by the violin. The elaboration of this theme leads to a second subject in the unexpected key of G major, again introduced by the piano. This material is developed at the heart of the movement.
• 2. The Scherzo which follows is introduced by the cello with an ascending theme to which the violin adds a descending phrase before giving the expected fugal answer. The cello starts the contrasting Trio and there is a further repetition of the Scherzo and Trio before the Scherzo re-appears yet again, leading to a coda.
• 3. The slow movement, one of some length, is in the form of a D major theme and four variations, following the traditional practice in a use of increasingly rapid notes to elaborate the material in the first three, while the fourth leads without a break to the final rondo, restoring the original key.
• 4. If, as is sometimes suggested, the first movement of the trio is symphonic in nature, the last movement is more like a piano concerto, which Archduke Rudolph, no doubt, would have relished. Almost uniquely, there is less involvement for string players than in any of Beethoven’s earlier or later chamber music; the violin part, in particular, is limited to its lower registers. As usual, Beethoven’s dynamic markings are unexpected and suggest a much subtler interpretation of the principal rondo theme than its fragmentary shape and carefree ‘oom-pah’ accompaniment seem to suggest.

Question 9

Piece: piano trio by Chopin

Answer 9

• Composer: Frédéric Chopin
• Title: Piano Trio in g, Op.8
• Date: 1828-9
• In a letter from August 1830, Chopin speculates whether he should have written the violin line for viola, believing that the viola’s timbre would “accord better with the cello”.
• The Trio is a composition of considerable weight. It is a cycle with a sonata structure, scored for piano accompanied by violin and cello. It is a musical drama in four acts, but a drama with an ending that is generally cheerful, but not devoid of a certain melancholy. Such a character is imparted to this work by its principal key: G minor, the same key that impressed its melancholy sound on Mozart’s famous symphony No.40.
• It is also the only work from the composer’s early years that is representative of chamber music.
• Chopin wrote it for Antoni Radziwiłł and his daughters. The Trio would be dedicated to Radziwiłł, but it was meant as a ‘homework’ piece – part of the curriculum of his studies with Elsner. Chopin composed the Trio on and off, and with some difficulty.
• dominated primarily by the spirit of Beethoven
• Beethovenian, comprising two juxtaposing motives: a solemn motif, or ‘gesture of opening’, and a ‘response’ to that gesture
• The Allegro is followed by a Scherzo, appearing in second place, and not as the third movement. The fourth movement is a classical rondo and resembles a Ukrainian Cossack dance.

Question 10

Piece: piano trio by Schubert, first.

Answer 10

• Composer: Franz Schubert
• Title: Piano Trio No. 1 in B-flat, D898
• Date: 1827
• Schubert wrote two complete Piano Trios
• The composer finished the work in the last year of his life, though the original autograph score is lost.
• Like the E-flat major trio, it is an unusually large scale work for piano trio, taking around 40 minutes in total to perform.
  1. It is in four movements, opening with a bright boldly cheerful first subject on the violin and cello, repeated on the piano, the cello then introduces the second melody of lyrical charm. Schubert’s song-writing shines in the lyrical second theme and the subject of emotional outpouring in the development. It always surprises with its various turns of invention.
  The sonata-form movement features a curious anomaly: the recapitulation begins in the “wrong” key (G-flat); it is only when the piano restates the first theme in the tonic (B-flat) that our expectation of symmetry is satisfied. The ambiguity thus toys with our expectations: does the recapitulation begin with the return of the first theme, or with the return to the home key?
  2. The slow movement which follows also has the cello as a principal instrument. Again the fountainhead of lyrical expression, the cello introduces the Andante un poco mosso’s gorgeous songlike theme, taken up by the violin and then by the piano. The gently introspective mood is interrupted by a more ominous middle section before Schubert unveils a final transformation of the initial melody: it now modulates in midstream and not just between restatements.
  3. The Scherzo is a staccato Allegro that resembles the Scherzo from Schubert’s Trout Quintet (the tune is upside down) in the classical minuet form. In the Trio, string melodies float above a relaxed piano waltz rhythm missing its downbeat; the singing strings and discombobulated piano navigate independent metrical courses, yet magically stay together. The trio has thematic connection with the preceding slow movement.
  4. Schubert called the finale a rondo but it may be better understood as sonata form in which the roles of development and recapitulation overlap. Marked Allegro vivace, it reasserts the buoyancy of the first movement, although tremolos and bell-like tones in the piano add an air of mystery. The main theme is derived from Schubert’s song “Skolie” whose text reads: “Let us, in the bright May morning, take delight in the brief life of the flower, before its fragrance disappears.” A dance-like tune, introduced by the violin, offers an amusing diversion, which leads to a first episode of more aggressively dramatic outline. When the dactylic rhythm of the main theme returns near the end in the piano’s high register, the movement seems about to fade away like an unwinding toy drummer. But Schubert saves a last exuberant breath for the Presto coda.

Question 12

Piece: piano trio by Schubert, second.

Answer 12

• Composer: Franz Schubert
• Title: Piano Trio No. 2 in E-flat, D929
• Date: 1828
• Schubert wrote two complete Piano Trios
• One of the last compositions completed by Schubert
• It was given its first private performance by Carl Maria von Bocklet on the piano, Ignaz Schuppanzigh playing the violin, and Josef Linke playing cello. It was also played at the first and only public concert of Schubert’s compositions during his lifetime.
• Like Schubert’s other piano trio, in B-flat major, this is a comparatively larger work than most piano trios of the time, taking almost 50 minutes to perform.
• While the autograph score of the B flat major Trio has long since been lost, in the case of its companion in E flat, D. 929, we have not only Schubert’s final manuscript, but also a working draft of the first three movements. The latter reveals how radically he altered some of the music’s details as he worked. This is particularly true of the slow movement, whose entire shape was changed between the draft and the final version.
• “This work is to be dedicated to nobody, save those who find pleasure in it.”
• 1. The first movement is in sonata form. There is disagreement over the break-up of thematic material with one source claiming six separate units of thematic material while another source divides them into three themes each with two periods. There is to an extent extra thematic material during the recapitulation. At least one of the thematic units is based closely on a theme in an earlier piano sonata. The development section focuses mainly on the final theme of the exposition.
• 2. The C Minor second movement is in an asymmetrical-double-ternary form. Over a quasi funeral-march rhythm, the cello presents a haunting melody based on the Swedish song “Se solen sjunker” (The sun is going down).
• 3. The scherzo is a contrapuntally elegant Allegro moderato whose 27-bar canon continues in close imitation in the standard double ternary form. The A flat major Trio which it frames brings dynamic contrasts.
• 4. What lends cohesion to this panoramic work is the cyclic element. The Swedish song, the opening theme of the second movement, twice makes an appearance in the finale, as altered versions in two interludes —in the development and in the extended coda—and both times in the cello. There are two extant versions of this finale (Schubert cut 99 bars from this movement for the published version).

Question 13

Piece: piano trio by Mendelssohn, first.

Answer 13

• Composer: Felix Mendelssohn
• Title: Piano Trio No.1 in d, Op.49
• Date: 1839
• During the initial composition of the work, Mendelssohn uncharacteristically took the advice of a fellow composer, Ferdinand Hiller, and revised the piano part. The revised version was in a more romantic, Schumannesque style with the piano given a more important role in the trio.
• In an 1840 review of Mendelssohn’s D-minor Piano Trio, Robert Schumann compared his contemporary to the greats of the past.
  1. The first movement is in sonata form and begins without an introduction with a cantabile main theme played by the cello, with the piano providing a syncopated accompaniment. The violin then joins the cello with a distorted version of the theme. Further variations of the main theme fill the stormy transition to the second theme, also introduced by the cello, which is in A major, and is subsequently echoed by the piano and violin. The rapid figuration of the piano part gives the central development a new tension and excitement. Mendelssohn combines both themes in the development, which is predominately in D minor, the key in which the movement also ends. In the recapitulation, the cello, now accompanied by a violin counter-melody, offers the first theme, which is followed by the second theme, before arriving at the agitated of the closing section of the movement.
  2. The piano is first entrusted with the principal theme of the B flat major slow movement, with the eight bar melody in the right hand and the accompaniment divided between the hands, as in a number of Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words. Below this, the bass line in the piano moves methodically, carefully balancing with the accompaniment and the melody. After the piano plays the main theme, the violin repeats it with a counterpoint played on the cello. A second part is added to the theme by the piano, again echoed by the violin, before a B flat minor variant of the material is introduced. The theme is heard again from the violin, with a more elaborate accompaniment, leading to a tranquil conclusion.
  3. The short and light D major scherzo is essentially in sonata form, and bears the unmistakable traits of Mendelssohn, suggesting, as it does in outline, music to be associated with A Midsummer Night’s Dream. As in the second movement, the main theme is first played on the piano, which then reduces itself to fragmentary accompaniment almost immediately. A rhythmic motif of the main theme is present throughout the movement, except in the more lyrical central section, whose theme resembles material from the first movement. There is no contrasting trio section.
  4. The key of D minor is initially restored in the final Allegro assai appassionato, a rondo, with a first episode in first relatively tranquil F major that mounts in excitement. The next episode, after the return of the main theme, is in B flat major, introduced by the cello. This theme brings a momentary shaft of sunlight into the final section in D major. After Hiller gave Mendelssohn his advice, the finale was the most revised movement and unsurprisingly has a busy piano part. Various keyboard techniques are called upon in the movement, from close chords to sweeping arpeggios and chromatic octaves. The cantabile moments provide a refreshing contrast.