Piano Trio in E major H.XV/28 (c1796)

When Haydn wrote his Piano Trio in E major, apparently not long after his return to Vienna from his second visit to London in 1795, Mozart’s Piano Trios had been in print for seven years or more. If any proof were needed that the modern piano, violin and cello could converse together on something approaching equal terms, there it was - even if the piano was still the dominant voice and the violin still more prominent than the cello. Haydn persisted, however, in treating the piano trio as, at best, a duo for a star pianist and a modest violinist, relegating the cellist for the most part to the unglamorous task of doubling the piano bass line.

It is true that in this case he was writing for a pianist whom he particularly admired: as in the companion Piano Trios in C and E flat major, he was clearly interested above all in creating a worthy piano part for Theresa Jansen, a highly successful London piano teacher. This does not mean, on the other hand, that he had no interest in enriching the piano-trio texture. The opening bars of the first movement of the Piano Trio in E major, where the keyboard part is notated in such a way that the piano seems to be joining the pizzicato violin and cello in plucking the notes of the main theme, must have been a new sound in its day. As well as new sounds there are fresh chromatic harmonies, like those so wittily applied in the elaborately scored transition passage (with a rhythmically independent cello part) that leads to the presentation of the same theme as a second subject. The next appearance of that theme in the middle of the development section, fortissimo and in the remote key of A flat major, is a particularly striking harmonic event.

The E minor Allegretto is a, for Haydn, very rare tribute to J.S. Bach. Basically a two-part invention, it features an inspired melodic improvisation for piano over the ostinato bass introduced by all three instruments in octaves in the opening bars. The textural interest of the passage that follows, where the improvisation continues but with the full participation of the strings, is a remarkable indication of what variety could be achieved with the cello still doubling the bass line.

The Finale is another monothematic movement, a ternary construction as regular in its symmetry as it is surprising in the passionate involvement of the violin in a turbulent middle section in E minor.