Program Notes

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Piano Trio No. 2 in E-Flat Major, D. 929, Op. 100 (1827)

Notes for: August 1, 2006

The following announcement appeared in the March 25, 1828, issue of the Wiener Theaterzeitung:

“Among the manifold musical art exhibitions which have been offered us in the course of this season and still await us, one should attract general attention the more because it offers enjoyment both new and surprising by the novelty and sterling value of the compositions and the attractive variety among the musical items as well as the sympathetic collaboration of the most celebrated local artists.

“Franz Schubert, whose powerfully intellectual, enchantingly lovely and original tone-poems have made him the favorite of the whole musical public, and which may well secure their creator a more than ephemeral, nay an imperishable, name by their genuine artistic value, will perform on 26th March, at a private concert in the Austrian Philharmonic Society’s room, a series of the latest products of his mind.

“May the glorious German tone-poet, then, be granted an attendance such as his modesty and unobtrusiveness would alone deserve, quite apart from his artistic eminence and the rare and great musical enjoyment which is to be expected.”

The announcement also included the necessary ticket information and the works on the all-Schubert program. The latter included the first movement of a new string quartet; several lieder; a chorus for male voices; Auf dem Strom, a song with an “obligatory” part for the horn; and the Piano Trio in E flat major. Auf dem Strom was specially written for this concert, while the trio had previously been played in public only once three months earlier.

Schubert had been dreaming of a concert of his music at least since 1823, but he could not afford the cost. This was the only way, he believed, to promote the sale and performance of his music. Finally, in the spring of 1828, eight months before his death, Schubert’s friends persuaded the artists to perform without charge and the Philharmonic society to let Schubert use its concert hall – housed in an old mansion called “The Red Hedgehog.”

His friends then wrote the flowery announcement quoted above, packed the house, applauded fervently, demanded encores, and, after the concert, adjourned to “The Snail,” a favorite inn, to celebrate. The press comment was generally favorable although a Dresden journal said the concert “paled before the radiance” of a recent concert by Paganini. Most important, Schubert was left with a profit of more than 300 gulden, in those days a substantial sum.

Both Auf dem Strom and the Piano Trio escaped the fate of most of Schubert’s music of his final year – to lie undiscovered for 20 years or more following his death. The artists who performed Auf dem Strom at the March 26 concert repeated it at a concert of their own in April, and the trio was given several public performances. Significantly, both works were selected for performance in January, 1829, at an invitational concert sponsored by the Austrian Philharmonic Society to raise funds for Schubert’s cemetery monument.

Auf dem Strom was published in Vienna four months after Schubert’s death. The Piano Trio was published by a Leipzig firm just before Schubert’s death in November – the only Schubert work to be published outside Austria during his lifetime. However, the publication took place only after a series of delays and a tense exchange of correspondence, which paints a pathetic picture of the composer’s financial worries during his final summer. Given the normal delays in delivery, the chances are he never saw or held a printed copy.

The Piano Trio is one of Schubert’s longest instrumental works, taking some 42 minutes. Its first movement, in fact, runs to 634 measures, and its fourth movement, to 748. And this was after Schubert had cut 99 measures before publication! One factor in the work’s excessive length is its typically Schubertian abundance of melody. Another is Schubert’s habit of subjecting his melodies to long sequences of modulations (key changes). A third – let’s face it, is the trio’s tendency to be diffuse and repetitive.

These factors are clearly evident in the first movement, which departs in many ways in structure and content from the sonata form that Schubert inherited from Haydn and Mozart. The movement opens with a bold theme, announced by the three instruments in unison. After 16 measures, the theme continues with a completely different strain for the cello. The second theme also has two distinct elements, both in a minor mode – a rhythmic tune marked by repeated notes and presented by the piano, and a flowing melody stated by the cello with the violin joining two measures later.

And Schubert’s outburst of melody is still not finished. He combines the two elements of the first theme into a brand new third theme, and it is this theme – more accurately, its first four measures – that provides the raw material for the development. The violin and cello repeat these four measures again and again against triplets in the piano in a breath-taking series of modulations extending some 190 measures. Eventually, we are led back to the restatement of the first theme.

The second movement is an example of Schubert’s occasional use of a song as the basis for an instrumental work. In most cases, he used a song of his own. For the slow movement of this trio, however, he uses a Swedish folk song, “The Sun Has Set,” which he heard a visiting Swedish tenor sing at a Vienna house party. However, he adds a marching gait, first stated by the piano, as the cello presents the theme. He then finds in the song a high drama far from the simple original, and the movement gradually builds in tension until it explodes in a disturbing and violent climax.

The third movement, Scherzo, again offers a wealth of melody. The main section treats them in canonic imitation – that is, with the piano leading off with the tune and the strings following with the same strain a measure later. Sometimes the order is reversed and the lag stretches to two measures, but virtually every measure is an imitation of another. In the contrasting trio, the rhythm changes to a stomping ländler – an Austrian country dance.

The long finale has three themes. The first, in a sprightly 6/8 rhythm, is stated at the outset by the piano. Schubert’s biographer Alfred Einstein points out the similarity of this theme with Schubert’s song “Skolie,” which urges us to enjoy May flowers before their fragrance disappears, and the tune here has the same joyful intent.

The second theme, in duple time and presented in several different guises, has a distinctive Hungarian gypsy flavor. The third theme is the Swedish folk song from the second movement – one of the first examples of the practice of tying a work together by using a theme from an earlier movement. After a second and final appearance of the Swedish tune, the music increases in excitement, and the trio reaches a jubilant ending.

Copyright © 2006 by Willard J. Hertz