Piano Trio in E flat major Op.1 No.1 (1793-5)

When Haydn heard Beethoven perform his Op.1 Piano Trios at Prince Lichnowsky’s in Vienna - either in an early version in 1793 or in their final form in 1795 - he no doubt observed that the young composer preferred the Mozart model to his own. He might also have observed that, by liberating the cello from the bass line of the piano and so adding a third voice to the texture, Beethoven had sacrificed a degree of expressive intimacy. Clearly, however, it was Beethoven’s intention to expand the form, even at this early stage, and he couldn’t do that without allying the cello with the violin to create an equal balance between the strings on the one hand and the piano on the other.

He was not to achieve his ambitions for the piano trio until he completed the “Geister” and its Op.70 companion in 1808 and the “Archduke” a few years later. In his Op.1 Piano Trios, while he added a fourth movement to the three commonly found in Haydn’s and Mozart’s, he was still comparatively conventional in his scoring. In the opening Allegro of the E flat major work, for example, the bright first subject is a characteristic keyboard conception and, although the violin and cello join in introducing the more melodious second subject, they actually do little more than double the top and bottom lines of the piano part. It is only in a subsidiary second-subject theme that the violin is awarded the principal melodic interest; the cello gets to express its point of view only in a few short phrases in the development section. There is, on the other hand, an essentially piano-trio inspiration towards the end of the movement where, long after its official recapitulation, the violin and cello insist on having another look at harmonic potential of the second subject, leaving the piano finally to restore order.

In the intention perhaps of offsetting the innovatory Scherzo that is to follow, Beethoven offers a specially seductive slow movement in A flat major. Beautifully scored, not least in the cello’s introduction of its own material after the piano and the violin have indulged themselves in the main theme, the Adagio cantabile is particularly interesting for the central development where each instrument presents a variant of the theme in a different minor key. Certainly, the Scherzo is a direct contrast, both in the lively staccato articulation of the outer sections and the hushed legato in the middle.

After that nothing less than a brilliant finale will do. This Presto is certainly brilliant, particularly in the pseudo-contrapuntal development section. It is also, in its treatment of the tuneful second subject in both the exposition and the recapitulation, harmonically inspired.

Gerald Larner©