i. Allegro energico e fuoco

ii. Andante espressivo

iii. Scherzo. Molto Allegro quasi Presto

iv. Allegro appassionato

The C minor Piano Trio was started in February 1845 and finished in Frankfurt on 30 April. Mendelssohn gave the manuscript to his sister Fanny on her birthday, 14 May, and the published score has a dedication to Louis Spohr. The first performance was given in the Leipzig Gewandhaus on 20 December 1845, performed by Ferdinand David, Carl Wittmann and Mendelssohn himself. Mendelssohn’s own view of the work was equivocal: he told Spohr that ‘nothing seems good enough to me, and in fact neither does this trio.’ But this is to underestimate the power and intensity of the work. While it may not have the melodic exuberance of its predecessor (the better-known Piano Trio in D minor), it is dramatic and serious.

In the first movement, the darkly energetic opening theme on the piano accompanied by sustained strings sets the tone for much of what follows, and as a contrast it, Mendelssohn produces a gloriously ardent second theme in E flat major which provides most of the material for the development section, while the close of the movement has a vehemence that recalls Beethoven. The slow movement is a kind of Barcarolle (a favourite Mendelssohn form in solo piano works: there are several ‘Venetian Gondola Songs’ among his Songs without Words). The Scherzo is one of Mendelssohn’s distinctive and very fast duple-time movements, similar to the scherzo in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (composed in 1843). For the finale, Mendelssohn took his inspiration from J.S. Bach whose music he had done so much to revive. It begins as a kind of titanic Gigue, but it’s at the centre of the movement that the Bachian parallels are most striking. Mendelssohn introduces a chorale-like idea on the piano, its second phrase resembling the second line of the chorale known in English-speaking world as ‘All people that on earth do dwell’ (‘Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice’). As a composer with thoroughly Romantic sensibilities, Mendelssohn uses this to drive towards an exultant climax in C major.

© Nigel Simeone