Piano Trio in B flat major Op.21

Dvorák made two attempts to compose a piano trio, both of them in 1871, before – inspired perhaps by the example of Schubert’s in E flat – he wrote one he thought worth preserving. Even then he was not satisfied with it. The score of the Piano Trio in B flat dated 14 May 1875 underwent major revisions before its publication five years later. Perhaps it was the experience of hearing it performed, in Prague in 1877, that convinced the composer that he needed to replace the middle section of the third movement and make substantial cuts in the last. Anyway, whatever the precise order of events, they led to a highly accomplished and attractive score entirely worthy of its place as the first in the series of four piano trios culminating in the “Dumky” in 1891.

Although the Piano Trio in B flat does not aspire to the thoroughly Slavonic identity of the “Dumky,” its national credentials are established at an early stage. The lyrical opening theme of the first movement, gently presented by violin against undulating B flat major harmonies on the piano, is no more Czech than Viennese, it is true, and its contrastingly impetuous diminution is a standard classical procedure. But the second subject, approached by a melodious transitional theme and dramatic exchanges of phrases derived from the first subject, is another matter. Introduced by piano with a characteristic stress on the second beat of the bar, it is clearly related to the Slavonic Dances Dvorák was to write three years later. It occupies the composer’s almost exclusive attention to the end of the exposition. So its exclusion from the development section, a texturally and harmonically multi-faceted review of the first subject in both its forms, is all the more surprising. The compensation is in the recapitulation which, beginning at the top of a massive crescendo, departs from the precedence of the exposition by giving more prominence to the transitional theme and developing the Slavonic dance in a climactic coda before awarding it the quiet last word.

The heart of the work, like that of Schubert’s Piano Trio in E flat, is the slow movement – a seriously elegiac lament in G minor. Or at least it begins that way. Once the expressive main theme has passed from piano to cello and violin, both in high registers, there is an extraordinary modulation by way of D flat major to a consolatory middle section in A major. It does not succeed, however, in taking the sadness out of the first theme, which reappears in piano octaves in F sharp minor in the middle of the movement and then, towards the end, in G minor again in a severe, even grim canonic treatment on all three instruments. But in the closing bars, after a molto tranquillo version of the main theme in augmentation, the harmonies finally resolve onto G major. While that is the end of the movement, however, it is not the end of the emotional issues associated with it.

Before returning to those issues, Dvorák indulges himself in another celebration of the Czech idiom in the Allegretto scherzando, the delightfully scored outer sections of which are based on a carefree polka in E flat major. The revised trio section in B major, harmonically remote but thematically related, offsets the polka most effectively.

Beginning quietly in G minor, the Allegro vivace is evidently intended to be more than the conventionally rousing 6/8 finale. Its main theme, introduced in canon in B flat major, is cheerful enough but the second subject makes its first appearance in D minor and, although it is not out of reach of major harmonies, it has a chastening influence on the mood of the movement – so much so that, following Schubert’s example perhaps, Dvorák now has the opportunity to recall the elegiac main theme of the Adagio molto e mesto in B flat minor on an espressivo cello. That does, however, settle the issue, though not immediately, since the minor-key material retains its identity until it is overwhelmed by the irresistible B flat major coda.

Gerald Larner ©2007