Sonata (Allegro) for piano trio in B flat major D28 (1812)

Schubert’s major contributions to the piano-trio repertoire are two uncommonly inspired works in, respectively, B flat (D898) and E flat (D929), both of them written late in 1827. There are, however, two single-movement pieces scored for the same three instruments – a Sonata in B flat (D28) dating from 1812 and a Notturno in E flat (D897) written at much the same time as the Piano Trios in B flat and E flat. Not surprisingly, the latter work is much the more interesting of the two. But it would be a serious underestimation of the Sonata in B flat to dismiss it is a schoolboy essay, even though the composer was still a pupil at the Vienna Stadtkonvikt and taking lessions from Salieri. While it derives from Mozart stylistically, it goes its own way structurally – with a disproportionately long second subject, a spontaneous if discursive development, a wisely abbreviated recapitulation – and is pleasingly resourceful texturally.