Piano Trio in E flat major Op.93 (1821)

To compare Beethoven’s “Geister” with Hummel’s Piano Trio in E flat Op.93 would be to put the latter very firmly in its place – a place which, except for a possible influence on Schubert, is one of little historical significance. The intrinsic quality of the Hummel score is such, however, that it would be quite wrong to dismiss it because it sounds as though it could have been written 13 years before the “Geister” Trio rather than 13 years after it. The sixth in a series of seven piano trios, it is the immaculately decorous work of a composer utterly assured in the medium. Brilliantly written for the piano – he was one of the most accomplished pianists of his day – it is scarcely less idiomatically scored for violin and cello.

Although the beginning of the Allegro is more practical than colourful, in that it insists on establishing the structural importance of the crushed-note figuration introduced in the opening bars, the surge of string sound on the entry of the answering theme is melodiously encouraging. The second subject is most engagingly scored when, after a crushed-note transitional passage, it is introduced by cello to the accompaniment of piano arpeggios and again when it is repeated in a high register of the piano over string harmonies. The development section, beginning dramatically and including a fugato passage, is well varied in texture and the recapitulation is enterprising in its redistribution of material between the three instruments.

The cello has less than its fair share of the melodic nterest in the slow movement. The stylish opening theme is presented by piano and repeated by violin, which instrument is then entrusted with the responsibility not only of initiating the middle section but also, when it comes to the closing section, of recalling the melody originally awarded to the piano. Much the same situation persists in the closing Allegro con brio, a classic example of the sonata rondo, where the main theme is always presented by the piano and repeated by the violin. The cello does, however, have a prominent role to play in the first episode, in the central development and in the contrapuntal exchanges before the last recall of the rondo theme. ­