Piano Trio in G minor Op.26 (1876)

Dvorák’s Piano Trio in G minor was completed in little more than two weeks in January 1876 – which was his first opportunity, having by now completed his opera Vanda, to express in music his sorrow over the loss of his daughter Josefa, who had died just two days after her birth the previous September. It is not, however, a remake of the Piano Trio in G minor written by Smetana in similar circumstances twenty years earlier. The tragedy is explicit only in the short introduction to the first movement: in the dramatically scored pair of chords in the very first bar and in the immediately following fragment of drooping melody introduced in G minor on violin and repeated by cello.

Although that melody is then adopted as part of the main theme of the first movement proper, and although the two chords and an undulating semiquaver figure also from the introduction are frequently recalled, the Allegro moderato does not give in to grief. The second subject, for example, is presented in a sightly quicker tempo on cello in B flat major and is featured in the development scarcely less prominently than the main theme. It could in no way be described as a happy movement – and there is particularly touching moment of pathos on violin just before the recapitulation – but the second subject is still in the major on its recall, avoiding the G minor harmonies which, however, are unambiguously confirmed in the coda.

The Largo does not grieve either. It is a beautifully scored and masterfully sustained monothematic construction based on the melody introduced in E flat major by the cello in the opening bars. It is intimately expressive, certainly, and because of one or two modally flattened notes, even melancholy, but it is surely reading too much into it to hear sobs or tears in the fragmented version of the melody on piano in the middle of the movement. The sadness is still there, as is demonstrated in the next movement, where the staccato main theme of the claustrophobic triple-time Scherzo in G minor is briefly but poignantly presented in a slower tempo and in duple time on the cello. The innocently melodious trio section in G major only temporarily clears the air.

The ambiguities are resolved in the Finale. If the three chords at the beginning are intended to echo the opening of the work, it is immediately apparent, as they lead into a rhythmically and texturally playful polka, that their meaning is different. The tonality is still G minor at this stage but then, at a slightly quicker tempo, the three chords return to initiate a carefree episode in G major. Although the G minor material is recalled, it cannot long resist the natural tendency to end the work in an exuberant G major.

be described as a happy piece – and there is particularly poignant moment of pathos on violin just before the recpatulation – but the second subject is recalled in G major, even though the minor mode is firmly confirmed in the coda.