Classical Music | Music for Trio

Recorded on 06/26/2013, uploaded on 01/27/2014

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

During the summer of 1880, when Brahms was composing both the Academic Festival and Tragic Overtures, he was also sketching two piano trios in E-flat and C major. It had been a quarter of a century since the completion of the Piano Trio No. 1 in B major and the chamber ensemble awaited the full force of the mastery Brahms had acquired over the intervening years. Both pieces were temporary set aside but he returned to them in 1882. However, by then, the E-flat trio had disappeared and only the C major was completed. The work found an unusual favor with Brahms, who was often highly critical of his own work, and he boasted of it to his publisher, writing, “You have not so far had such a beautiful trio from me and very probably have not published one to match it in the last ten years.”

Violin and cello begin the piece announcing the first movement’s principal theme, which is built around Brahms’s beloved motif of descending thirds. The exposition of this nearly symphonic sonata form introduces a wealth of melodic material which is masterfully handled but Brahms’s impeccable sense of economy. Much of the development section is concerned solely with a lyrical variation of the opening theme. Development of the movement’s remaining ideas is shifted to the recapitulation and a coda lends the movement a feeling of grandeur in the final measures.

The Andante second movement is a set of five variations on a rustic tune in A minor with prominent “Scotch snaps.” While the first movement was overflowing with good humor, the Andante on the other hand is sorrowful bordering on the tragic. The following Scherzo is brief and turns to the key of C minor. The outer sections are dominated by a reiterated-note figure which is transformed into ghostly octaves and arpeggios, creating an austere musical landscape. The central Trio section, however, features one of Brahms’s most heart-warming melodies in a glowing C major.

Like the first movement, the Finale is also in sonata form and presents a wealth of material. However, where the first movement was a mixture good humor and vigor, the Finale is mostly relaxed. An extensive coda brings about, once again, the symphonic sonority of the first movement and leads the music to a grand and triumphal ending.      Joseph DuBose

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Piano Trio No. 2 in C major, op. 87     Johannes Brahms

Written in 1882 when Brahms was forty-nine, this piece is a mature work coming after the piano quartets, the piano quintet, the string sextets and all three string quartets.

The first page of the opening allegro establishes an astonishingly vast scale of expression. The principal theme makes large leaps in an ever-upward motion that stretches even further with sinuous chromaticism for several bars before its momentum is transferred to the piano.  There, it sweeps upward again in a series of accelerating arpeggios that ultimately alight on a massive dominant chord. Another full page of music builds to a restatement of the opening theme now confidently beaming an octave higher than before. There is an expansion of ensemble that progressively grows along the same path: first the strings in unison, then a contrapuntal splitting of ways finally joined by the glorious blossoming of the piano in the most romantic style. Typical of Brahms, the sonata offers a wealth of themes—at least four distinct ideas that are closely related and expertly joined.

The second movement andante presents a forlorn theme and five variations in A minor. With ever changing facets, Brahms, a master of variation, renders a richly diverse palette of piano trio sounds and textures, an ensemble with a powerful unity yet, due to its sparseness and the distinctive timbre of its constituents, always an intimate braid of three individual strands. Effects range from emphatic song to tragic might, and yet again to soft whispers, representing six stanzas of musical poetry.

The presto scherzo restores the momentum with a sharp, nimble lightness. With a marking, sempre leggiero (always light), Brahms places a terrible onus on the pianist to apply extraordinary effort to achieve an effortless sound. The trio is mellifluous and bountiful with layers of melody piling up and down in waves until they fade back into the spiky, nervous scurry of the C minor scherzo.

The finale returns to C major with a quirky main theme under the musical direction giocoso (playfully). While there is indeed a playful spirit abounding, the rich sonorities, inventive variation, exotic atmospheres and calculated breakthroughs of Brahmsian grandeur make this fluid rondo a satisfying and ultimately noble finale.     Sima Piano Trio

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.