Classical Music | Music for Trio

Recorded on 09/26/2006, uploaded on 01/14/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Piano Quartet in c minor, Op. 15          Gabriel Fauré

1. Allegro molto moderato; 2. Scherzo; 3. Adagio; 4. Allegro molto

Fauré wrote six major chamber music pieces over the course of his compositional career including a piano trio, a string quartet, two piano quintets and two piano quartets.  This piano quartet-opus 15 from 1879-is the earliest of those compositions and is arguably the most popular of the six. 

Opus 15 opens with a unison string statement of a vigorous principal theme that is transformed into a tender melody.  The viola introduces a secondary theme that is imitated by the other instruments.  Fauré alternates between the two themes with a flowing piano part throughout.  The movement ends with a conventional recapitulation and coda.

The Scherzo opens with the piano introducing the melody in 6/8 meter surrounded by pizzicato chords from the strings.  The tune moves to the string players who offer it in a 2/4 meter variation.  A playful rhythm is the result of continued meter shifts and the occasional superimposition of the theme in one meter against the same theme in a second meter.  A contrasting Trio section introduces a new melody primarily given to the strings.  The movement ends by returning to the Scherzo's first melody.

The Adagio movement is a personal expression of grief portraying great yearning and melancholy.  In A-B-A form, both themes are structured around rising scale fragments.  The return to the A theme offers a more elaborate piano part.

The finale, marked Allegro molto, uses a similar rising scale theme as the Adagio with the same rhythmic pattern introduced in the first movement, thereby giving unity to the quartet as a whole.  After an energetic opening subject, the second more song-like theme is introduced by the viola, before being taken up by the other players.  The development section builds to an impassioned climax.  A recapitulation of the first motive of the movement starts quietly and leads to a brilliant conclusion.     Flatiron Trio

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.