Notes for: July 22, 2008
In the early years of the 19th century, piano makers introduced the sustaining or damper pedal, triggering a major breakthrough in the playing of the instrument. The pedal made it possible for the performer to sustain notes and chords, to cut them short, or to play them in a smoother legato style. Equally important, the pedal expanded the piano’s sonorities by making its full body of strings available for sympathetic resonance.
In his two piano trios of 1808, published as Opus 70, Beethoven was the first to exploit the piano’s expanded resources. In effect, these two trios did for the piano-trio literature what Beethoven’s “Eroica” did for symphonies and his three “Rasumovsky” quartets did for string quartets. Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven himself had previously written piano trios of high quality and originality, but Beethoven’s Opus 70 pair created a new standard for the expressive use of piano sonorities. The trios set the stage, in other words, for Beethoven’s monumental “Archduke” trio, completed three years later, and for the great romantic trios of Schumann, Mendelssohn and Brahms, who were particularly skillful in blending the piano’s enriched sound with those of string instruments.
Beethoven dedicated the two Opus 70 trios to a truly generous and patient friend – a Hungarian countess, Anna Marie Erdödy. The countess had married one of Beethoven’s earliest patrons, Count Peter Erdödy, in 1796 when she was only 17 years old but was now separated from her husband.
According to one account, the countess was a “very beautiful, fine little woman” and “so merry and friendly and good,” but she was crippled by a partial paralysis of her legs. “Her sole entertainment was found in music,” the account continues. “She plays even Beethoven’s pieces right well and limps with still swollen feet from one pianoforte to another.” The countess’s disabilities and Beethoven’s growing deafness may have added to their attraction for one another.
In 1808 the countess invited Beethoven to move into her home. Beethoven had been an itinerant lodger, changing quarters frequently because of minor discomforts or disagreements with landlords, and she hoped to help him settle down. Unfortunately, the irritable and inflexible composer made a poor houseguest, and after six months of petty squabbling he moved out.
Beethoven composed the two trios while still living in the Erdödy home and dedicated them to the countess in appreciation for her hospitality. But the countess made the well-intentioned mistake of intervening in a dispute between Beethoven and his manservant, bribing the servant to keep peace with his difficult employer. This evoked a furious outburst from Beethoven, who instructed his publisher to change the dedication of the trios to Archduke Rudolph, the emperor’s younger brother and also a Beethoven student. Happily, there was a reconciliation with the countess, and Beethoven not only let the original dedication stand but subsequently dedicated to her his two great cello sonatas, Opus 102.
The trio is in three movements. The first, in sonata form, is a study in contrasts. The main theme consists of two segments – a thumping tune played by all three instruments in octave unison, and immediately thereafter a lyrical melody, dolce, in the cello. Such abrupt changes in mood and texture dominate the movement, and the two elements meet head-on in the unusually long development. The theme is further developed in the recapitulation, and the coda reverses the order of the two elements, beginning with the dolce strain and ending with the unison motive.
The trio gets its nickname “Ghost” from the slow movement, whose atmosphere of mystery, gloom and terror reminded Beethoven’s pupil, Carl Czerny of the ghost in Hamlet. Czerny may have been on to the right playwright but the wrong play. Beethoven’s sketch books reveal that, at the time of the trio’s composition, the composer was planning an opera about Macbeth and had even sketched out an opening witches’ chorus. The opera project was never realized, and whether it was related to this movement can only be conjectured.
The movement, in an agonizingly slow tempo, is based on two one-measure motives stated sotto voce at the outset. The first motive is played by the strings in the first and third measures, and the other by the piano in the second and fourth. These spectral motives are repeated ominously throughout the movement, against ghostly tremolo chords in the piano and with hair-raising climaxes.
After two such intense movements, the listener is grateful for the relaxed, happy-go-lucky finale.
Notes for: July 14, 2015
In the early years of the 19th century, piano makers introduced the sustaining or damper pedal, making possible a major breakthrough in the playing of the instrument. With the pedal, the performer could sustain notes and chords, cut them short, or play them in a smoother legato style. Equally important, the pedal expanded the piano’s sonorities by making its full body of strings available for sympathetic resonance.
In his two piano trios of 1808, published as Opus 70, Beethoven was the first to exploit the piano’s expanded resources. In effect, the trios did for the piano trio literature what Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony did for symphonies and his three Rasumovsky Quartets did for string quartets. Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven himself had previously written piano trios of high quality and originality, but Beethoven’s Opus 70 pair created a new standard for the expressive use of piano sonorities. The trios set the stage, in other words, for Beethoven’s monumental Archduke trio, completed three years later, and for the great romantic trios of Schumann, Mendelssohn and Brahms, who further blended the piano’s enriched sound with the sounds of the string instruments.
Beethoven dedicated the two Opus 70 trios to a truly remarkable and generous friend - a Hungarian countess, Anna Marie Erdödy, who had married one of Beethoven’s earliest patrons, Count Peter Erdödy, in 1796 when she was only 17 years old.
According to one account, the countess was a “very beautiful, fine little woman” and “so merry and friendly and good,” but she was crippled by a partial paralysis of her legs. “Her sole entertainment was found in music,” the account continues. “She plays even Beethoven’s pieces right well and limps with still swollen feet from one pianoforte to another.” The countess’s disabilities and Beethoven’s growing deafness may have added to their attraction for one another.
In 1808 the countess invited Beethoven to move into her home. Beethoven had been an itinerant lodger, changing quarters frequently because of minor discomforts or disagreements with landlords, and she hoped to help him settle down. Unfortunately, the irritable and inflexible composer made a poor houseguest, and after six months of petty squabbling he moved out.
Beethoven composed the two trios while still living in the Erdödy home and dedicated them to the countess in appreciation for her hospitality. But the countess made the well-intentioned mistake of intervening in a dispute between Beethoven and his manservant, bribing the servant to keep peace with his difficult employer. This evoked a furious outburst from Beethoven, who instructed his publisher to change the dedication of the trios to Archduke Rudolph, the emperor’s younger brother and also a Beethoven student. Happily, there was a reconciliation with the countess, and Beethoven not only let the original dedication stand but subsequently dedicated to her his two great cello sonatas, Opus 102.
The first of the two trios - the one we hear this evening - is in three movements. The first movement, allegro vivace con brio, in sonata form, is a study in contrasts. The main theme consists of two segments – a thumping tune played by all three instruments in octave unison, and immediately thereafter a lyrical melody, dolce, in the cello. Such abrupt changes in mood and texture dominate the movement, and the two elements meet head-on in the unusually long development. The theme is further developed in the recapitulation, and the coda reverses the order of the two elements, beginning with the dolce strain and ending with the unison motive.
The trio gets its nickname Ghost from the slow movement, largo assai ed espressivo, whose atmosphere of mystery, gloom and terror reminded Beethoven’s pupil, Carl Czerny of the ghost in Hamlet. Czerny may have had in mind the right playwright but the wrong play. Beethoven’s sketch books reveal that, at the time of the trio’s composition, the composer was planning an opera about Macbeth and had even sketched out an opening witches chorus. The opera project was never realized, and whether it was related to this movement can only be conjectured.
The movement, in an agonizingly slow tempo, is based on two one-measure motives stated sotto voce at the outset. The first motive is played by the strings in the first and third measures, and the other by the piano in the second and fourth. These spectral motives are repeated ominously throughout the movement, against ghostly tremolo chords in the piano and with hair-raising climaxes.
After two such intensive movements, the listener is grateful for the relaxed, happy-go-lucky presto finale, also in sonata form.
Notes for: July 13, 2021
Beethoven’s first published works were the three Opus 1 Trios for piano, violin, and cello, published in 1795. He waited another thirteen years before returning to the genre with his two Opus 70 Piano Trios. In the interim he was producing a body of work that, beginning with the “Eroica” Symphony in 1803, was setting new standards in genre after genre. The two Opus 70 Trios were part of this groundbreaking flood of compositions. Written at the height of Beethoven’s “heroic” middle period, they are transformative works that “raise the genre to a level from which the later piano trio literature could move forward,” says Lewis Lockwood.
Among other things, as Lockwood observes, the D Major Trio demonstrates Beethoven’s new ways of thinking about ensemble sonorities. In earlier Classical trios the piano dominated; here the strings engage with the piano in rich contrapuntal interplay. The string parts are more difficult, the cello more prominent and wide-ranging, the piano more expansive, and the overall range and depth greater. Beyond the radical rethinking of instrumental roles, the Ghost Trio is structurally daring. Not only is it in three movements instead of the usual four, but Beethoven upends the conventional pattern in which strong outer movements flank a quiet slow movement. Here it is the middle Largo – an unsettling movement almost twice as long as the other two movements combined – that is the immense and weighty focal point of the work.
Beethoven sets the stage with a short, high-energy opening movement in which two relatively simple ideas introduced in the first few measures – a vigorous ascending four-note motif played in unison by the three instruments, and a lyrical second theme introduced by the cello – become the basis for a whirlwind of dynamic and dramatic contrasts. The jarring F-natural on which the opening rising motif ends signals that the Trio will be harmonically adventurous too. This movement serves as an introduction to the spectral Largo that follows. Carl Czerny gave the Trio its nickname when he described it as “ghastly awful, like an apparition from the lower world. During it, we may not unsuitably think of the first appearance of the Ghost in Hamlet.” The Largo is altogether strange – suspenseful, atmospheric, and obsessive, with spare textures, eerie tremolos, and a ghostly ending. Then comes relief as an ebullient and good-natured Presto rescues the Trio from gloom, bringing to a sunny close a work that points the way for the great Romantic trios to come.