Phantasiestücke, Op.88 (1842-1850)

Robert Schumann (181-–56)     

Fantasiestücke for piano trio op 88 (1842)

Romanze

Humoreske

Duett

Finale

Having taken years to achieve its final form – it was sketched in 1842 and completed in a first version a year later but not published until after a thorough revision in 1850 – Schumann’s Fantasiestücke for piano trio Op.88 has never found a firm place in the repertoire. Even so, while in terms of popularity it has been far less successful than his other works under the Fantasiestücke (Fantasy Pieces) title as well as his other three piano trios, it is a highly attractive score. The opening Romanze has a pleasingly confiding rueful quality to it, while the Humoreske retains its good humour in spite of its somewhat random succession of short episodes in binary form, the third and first being recalled at the end to lend the construction a kind of symmetry. The Duett is a melodiously amorous, ultimately passionate exchange between violin and cello accompanied by piano arpeggios until they break off for a strangely morose ending.    Most imaginative of all perhaps, if somewhat repetitive in places, is the march-time Finale which embraces a diversity of episodes, including an ingenious study in counterpoint early on and a playful little diversion in the middle, before making an explosive exit.

Romanze

Humoreske

Duett

Finale

The first Schumann Piano Trio to be completed was Clara Schumann’s in F minor, Op.17, which she wrote between May and September in 1846. Although she promptly dismissed it as “effeminate and sentimental,” her husband was clearly impressed. In December 1842, stimulated by hearing Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio in D minor again, Robert Schumann had started writing a set of short pieces for the same three instruments but, at the end of a year in which he had already composed five major works of chamber music, he was too tired to finish it to his satisfaction. Within little more than a year of encountering Clara’s example, however, Robert had completed two piano-trio masterpieces - in D minor, Op.63, and in F major, Op.80. The abandoned set of short pieces, which he now decided to call Phantasiestücke by analogy with his Op.12 piano pieces, he released for publication only in 1850.

The Phantasiestücke, Op.88, is an attractive suite of four movements loosely linked by their tonality and so arranged that two lyrical pieces are offset by two more playful ones. If the Humoreske seems rather too long for the interest of its material, the melancholy Romanze in A minor and the tenderly expressive Duett in D minor are authentic examples of Schumann’s poetic inspiration. The Finale is an amusing little march with two trios.