ROMANTIC PIANO TRIOS

1. Zart und mit Ausdruck (Tender and with expression)
2. Lebhaft, leicht (Lively, light)
3. Rasch und mit Feuer (Fast and with fire)

During a feverish period of composing activity in February 1849, Schumann wrote his Fantasiestücke Op. 73 in two days, and he offered them immediately to the publisher Luckhardt in Kassel. Composer and publisher moved quickly, and Schumann returned the corrected proofs by early June 1849. The original title had been ‘Soirée Pieces’, but this was changed before publication. Originally conceived for clarinet and piano, the suggested alternative scoring for violin or cello had probably come from the publisher, but it was one which the composer was very happy. The first performance of the original clarinet and piano version was given at a concert in Leipzig on 14 January 1850. The three movements are the most poetic examples of Schumann’s lyrical writing, particularly the first two. And even in the passionately animated third movement, the ‘fire’ is not that of anger but of elation. 

Nigel Simeone 2024 

1. Allegro moderato
2. Scherzo: Tempo di Menuetto
3. Andante
4. Allegretto

Clara Schumann composed her Piano Trio in G minor in 1846 at a time of considerable distress in the Schumann household: the Schumanns’ fourth child, Emil, was extremely sickly (he died the next year), and Robert’s mental health was giving cause for concern; and Clara herself suffered a miscarriage in the middle of composing the trio. It was written amidst all this personal and family turmoil between May and September 1846, mostly in Dresden but with some work on it during a much-needed break on Norderney, one of the East Frisian Islands. completing it a year before Robert’s first attempt at the form (he acknowledged its influence on his own work). The first movement is a passionately argued Allegro moderato in sonata form, opening with an ardent first subject on the violin, over a quiet but agitated piano accompaniment. The fluency and skill with which the musical argument is presented is unsurprising from such an experienced musician – Clara was one of the greatest pianists of the nineteenth century and one of the best educated – but what is truly remarkable is the originality and character of the musical ideas themselves, whether in the drama of the first movement, the elegant charm of the Scherzo–Minuet, the glorious song-like theme which dominates the Andante, or the Allegretto finale. This is another sonata form movement, but its development section also features a good deal of fugal writing. It is only in the last four bars that the music turns from G minor to G major – but there’s no easy sense of victory here, more – perhaps – a fleeting glimpse of happier times to come.   

This Scherzo formed the third movement of a sonata written jointly by Robert Schumann, Albert Dietrich and Brahms as a surprise for their friend Joseph Joachim when he visited Düsseldorf in October 1853. The three-note motto F–A–E (‘Frei aber einsam’ – ‘Free but lonely’) was associated with Joachim and is used in all the movements of what Schumann called ‘the FAE Sonata surprise’. Dietrich wrote the first movement, Schumann and second and fourth, and Brahms the third. Joachim played it through for the first time – with Clara Schumann at the piano – on 28 October 1853 and, as they played the work, he had to guess the composer of each movement. This Allegro by a very young Brahms already has hints of the mature musician to come. It was only published posthumously, but as one critic wrote when it was issued by Brahms-Gesellschaft in 1906, ‘it shows a few characteristic traits of the master [and] people will be interested to take note of it.’ 

Nigel Simeone 2024

Sehr lebhaft
Mit innigem Ausdruck
In mässiger Bewegung
Nicht zu rasch

Schumann’s Second Piano Trio was initially sketched in 1847, while he was still finishing the Op.63 Trio, but it was not completed until nearly two years later, in April 1849. Written in the pastoral key of F major, it is a very different work from its much darker and more dramatic predecessor. The reason for this is immensely touching: when Schumann began work, it was the tenth anniversary of his secret engagement to Clara, and the Trio is full of allusions to their first love. As Joan Chisell wrote: ‘no further guesses are needed as to why the first two movements are threaded with the opening phrase (“In the depths of my heart I keep a radiant image of you”) of his love-song Intermezzo (from the Eichendorff Liederkreis Op.39) written for Clara just before their eventual long-delayed marriage in 1840.’ The first movement, in quick triple time, is both lively and ardently lyrical, while the song-like slow movement is a radiant outpouring of adoration. The third movement Scherzo is in a minor key, gentle and wistful. After this nostalgic interlude, the finale ends the work in a state of almost untroubled elation. For Clara Schumann this piece remained a great favourite among her husband’s works – partly, no doubt, because of its intimate private messages, but also because it shows Schumann at his most effortlessly inventive. The first performance was given in their house on 29 April 1849, in a private concert that also included the première of Schumann’s Spanisches Liederspiel for four solo voices and piano, and Clara subsequently played it on many occasions.

Nigel Simeone © 2014