String Trio in B flat major D581 (1817)

We might think that Schubert found a very satisfactory solution to the problem of writing for string trio when he first approached the medium in 1816. It seems, however, that the composer himself thought otherwise, not so much because he abandoned the work after completing an Allegro in B flat and part of a slow movement - he could have done that for any number of reasons - as because when he returned to the string trio a year later he adopted a clearly different approach. Indeed, by choosing the same key for the Trio he completed in 1817 (D581) as for the one had failed to finish (D471) in 1816, he seemed to be telling himself that he had got it wrong first time.

The Allegro of D471 is actually more than half as long again as the Allegro moderato of D581. If Schubert abandoned it for artistic rather than practical reasons, it could be because he felt that the string trio could not support three more movements of corresponding proportions. Certainly, the later Trio is the product of a less ambitious project. It is not only shorter than D471 would have been but also less intimate in expression, more inclined to retain an elegant surface than reveal secrets beneath it, more a divertimento than a string quartet for three instruments. Delightfully congenial though the Allegro moderato is, it has neither the melodic variety nor the harmonic interest of the earlier Allegro. The Andante, which sets out as though introducing a theme for variations and which does indeed end with a highly decorative version of the charming opening theme, is actually a ternary construction with a spontaneously expressive middle section initiated by a ruminative cello. Neither a minuet nor a ländler but a bit of both, the Menuetto confirms its rustic tendency with a lovely, almost Tyrolean viola solo in the trio section. The most adventurous scoring occurs in the two episodes between the three appearances of the sociable opening theme of the last movement - both of them virtuoso interventions featuring mainly the violin but by no means neglecting the others.