The Piano Trio, Op. 8, is a composition in G minor for piano, violin and cello, by Frédéric Chopin, written in 1828 or 1829, and published in 1829, dedicated to Antoni Radziwiłł.
It has four movements:
I. Allegro con fuoco (00:02)
II. Scherzo (8:29)
III. Adagio sostenuto (14:36)
IV. Finale: Allegretto (20:35)
A typical performance lasts approximately 25-27 minutes.
Everything suggests that Chopin wrote the last notes onto the score of the Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 8 during the spring of 1829. The Trio is a composition of considerable weight, and in some respects it is similar to the Piano Sonata in C minor. It, too, is a cycle with a sonata structure, but scored for different forces: piano accompanied by violin and cello. This is a design of a dramatic character. It is a musical drama in four acts, but a drama con lieto fine: with an ending that is generally cheerful, but not devoid of a certain melancholy. Such a character is imparted to this work by its principal key: G minor, the same key that impressed its melancholy sound on one of the famous last three symphonies of Mozart.
For Chopin, the Trio in G minor turned into a task, a challenge and an adventure all in one. During his studies with Elsner, he must have had some contact with chamber music. He had already written a couple of works for piano with orchestral accompaniment: the ‘Là ci darem’ Variations, Rondo à la krakowiak and Fantasy on Polish Airs.
Circumstances of a private nature induced him to compose a Polonaise in which the piano struck up a dialogue with a cello. Chopin wrote it in Antonin, for Antoni Radziwiłł and his daughters. The Trio would be dedicated to Radziwiłł, but it was meant as a ‘homework’ piece - part of the curriculum of his studies with Elsner. It is also the only work from the composer’s early years that is representative of chamber music. In his late years, Chopin would take up an equally weighty task in this kind of music. The result would be a masterwork: the Sonata in G minor for piano and cello, and one may see the G minor Trio as presaging that late fulfilment.
Chopin composed the Trio on and off, and with some difficulty. He began writing it in 1828. In the autumn of that year, on returning from Berlin, he informed Tytus Woyciechowski: ‘The Trio is not yet entirely finished’. But for some unknown reason, he set it aside and turned to writing the Rondo à la krakowiak. Only after completing the Rondo, and so in the spring of 1829, did he return to the score of the Trio. The premiere took place more than a year later, in August 1830, in the drawing-room of the Chopins’ home, in the presence of Żywny and Elsner.
One may concur with Tadeusz Zieliński that the Trio ‘undoubtedly belongs among the masterpieces of the chamber music of its times, although the composer had not yet achieved the utmost freedom in employing instruments that he had not previously used’. The fact that this represents Chopin’s chamber music debut would appear to explain another property of this work, perhaps more important than its lack of ‘the utmost freedom’ in employing hitherto unused instruments. To a significant extent, the Trio brings an encounter with echoes of music previously heard. In his virtuosic and concert works, Chopin adopted and modified, in his own individual way, models taken from music created by pianists of the brillant current: Hummel and Moscheles, Ries and Kalkbrenner. In his chamber music debut, one hears echoes of music heard on a higher level: above all in Beethoven and Schubert, although Hummel also occasionally comes through.
Rich performance by Jan Krzysztof Broja on pianoforte, Jakub Jakowicz on violin, and Andrzej Bauer on cello playing on period instruments.