Beethoven: Trio No. 2 for Piano, Violin, and Cello, in G, Op. 1, No. 2
Ames Town & Gown performers: David Finckel - cello, Wu Han - piano, Phillip Seltzer - violin;
Ames City Auditorium, October 25, 2015
Notes by Karl E. Gwiasda
On arriving in Vienna from Bonn in 1792, Ludwig van Beethoven had three goals in mind: to begin study in composition under Franz Josef Haydn, to establish himself within Vienna’s musical circles, and to make his mark as a composer. He quickly achieved the first two of his objectives, gaining a reputation as an outstanding pianist while also acquiring the support of several patrons. He delayed a while, however, before issuing any music apart from a few short piano pieces. Possibly, he wished to make himself well-known as a performer before he made a serious bid to present himself as a composer. In any case, he held off issuing his first significant published work until 1795.
Beethoven’s choice for his Opus 1 was a bit unusual—a set of three piano trios. At the time, chamber compositions incorporating the recently developed pianoforte were still something of a novelty, though that situation was fast changing. In his earliest published works, moreover, Beethoven seems pointedly to have avoided any of the genres that were especially associated with Haydn and Mozart—namely, the string quartet, the symphony, and the concerto. He would dare that inescapable comparison only when he was confident he was fully ready for the challenge.
While the date of publication for the Opus 1 trios is accurately known, their date of composition is uncertain. A good part of the uncertainty stems from a report left by Ferdinand Ries, Beethoven’s first pupil, in his reminiscences of his years in Beethoven’s company. According to Ries, Haydn attended a private performance of the trios prior to their publication in 1795. If so, the trios would had to have been completed by 1793, for Haydn left Vienna in mid-January 1794 for an 18-month residence in London. This early completion date, moreover, suggests that Beethoven may have spent some time revising the trios before turning them over to his publisher.
In recent decades, scholars have concluded that Ries’s account is mistaken. Ries had not himself come to Vienna until 1801, so his report was given second-hand, not from direct experience. The consensus now is that the private performance Ries cited most likely took place following Haydn’s return to Vienna in August 1795 and that the trios were written during 1794-1795, though the first of them may have been initially sketched a few years earlier.
For their keyboard trios, Haydn and Mozart adopted the three-movement, fast-slow-fast pattern that was typical of the concerto. Beethoven, however, chose a different template for his Opus 1 trios. He cast them in the four-movement structure that had become the norm for a symphony or string quartet. His first three piano sonatas were likewise in four movements, and he retained a four-movement pattern in all but one of the six piano trios he wrote altogether. Perhaps he was just determined to be different from his predecessors, but his choice does indicate his partiality to shaping his musical thoughts in symphonic terms. Whatever his reasons, Beethoven’s example clearly influenced his successors—among them, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Brahms, all of whom cast their own piano trios in four movements.
As Haydn had done in his later symphonies, Beethoven opens the Trio in G with a slow introduction. The pace picks up when the piano introduces the movement’s main theme, which is thereupon taken up by the strings. After a while, the violin introduces a jaunty second theme. These themes provide the material for the central portion of the movement. In the later part of this development, the themes are handled contrapuntally—that is, one is played off against the other in a manner akin to the overlapping lines in a round like “Frĕre Jacques.” The movement closes in a burst of forceful animation.
Marked Largo con espressione (“Broad, with expression”), the stately and serious second movement offers a decided contrast to the genial first movement. It is constructed as a series of alternating variations on the movement’s two themes, a device often employed by Haydn. The first theme is stated by the piano at the outset. The second, also presented by the piano, appears shortly after. Thereafter comes a succession of paired variations: a variation on the first theme followed by a variation on the other. The movement ends gently.
In a step he came more and more to favor, Beethoven substitutes a Scherzo (literally, “Jest”).for the minuet or dance that typically filled the third spot in the four-movement works by Haydn and Mozart. Like a minuet, however, the movement is in ternary (ABA) form. While Beethoven’s scherzos are usually boisterously energetic, the scherzo of the Trio tends more to good-natured amiability. Its middle section—confusingly called a “trio” because such intermediate segments were often played by three instruments in older works—is suggestive of a sprightly and cheerful country dance. Like the first movement, the finale (Presto) is in sonata form. Its main subject is a skittish theme stated at the onset by the violin. The piano later adds a playful and sprightly second theme. Filled with sudden stops and quick shifts in tempo, the movement ends in an abrupt and emphatic fashion.
Performances of Trio No. 2 for Piano, Violin, and Cello, in G, Op. 1, No. 2 (all freely available on YouTube)