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Trio No. 1 in D minor for Piano, Violin, and Cello, Op. 63
Robert Schumann
  • Born June 8, 1810, in Zwickau, Saxony
  • Died July 29, 1856, in Endenich, near Bonn
  • Composed in 1847
  • First CMS performance on January 6, 1974, by pianist Richard Goode, violinist Jaime Laredo, and cellist Lynn Harrell
  • Duration: 33 minutes

Felix Mendelssohn maintained a healthy friendship with Clara and Robert Schumann for much of his life. Felix advocated for Robert’s music by planning and conducting performances; Robert published supportive reviews of Felix’s new works; and Clara and Felix regularly performed together as a piano duo. Still, they had their differences. Music came a bit more easily to Felix than it did to Robert—a source of jealousy that he admitted to Clara during their courtship: “I know exactly how I compare with him as a musician. I could still learn from him for years. But perhaps he could also learn something from me. If I had grown up in circumstances similar to his, destined from childhood for music, I might equal and even surpass them all.”

The relative fluency with which the composers approached their craft resulted in differences of taste and attitude. For example, after he heard Felix conduct Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Robert felt that “Mendelssohn took the first movement unbelievably fast; it was so distressing to me that I walked out on the spot,” while Felix’s feeling was that he “never would have imagined it otherwise.” For Mendelssohn, the D-minor passions of that opening movement could be well expressed with fleet, unabated energy; for Schumann, something more wandering and contemplative was needed.

Felix’s 1839 Piano Trio in D minor (Op. 49) was one of Robert’s and Clara’s favorite works. When both Schumanns took to writing piano trios in the 1840s, Mendelssohn’s example was no doubt at the back of their minds. At the same time, Robert’s 1847 Trio in D minor (Op. 63) does more to distinguish his style from that of his friend than to show what they shared. Where Felix’s trio is full of passionate, pianistic virtuosity and singable lines that repeat numerous times to articulate different sections, Robert’s piece approaches melody and structure with a churning density that only truly abates in the work’s final minutes.

Schumann is notably stingy with the tunes in the first movement of this trio. The opening Mit Energie und Leidenschaft is full of gestures—fragments that point toward some melodic outgrowth but instead run into one another, never quite building to something that feels complete or singable. When, in the middle of a massive development section, Schumann clears the air and the cello at last presents a long, prayer-like line, it is remarkable not just because it is a late-emerging, brand-new melody, but because it’s the first proper tune we’ve heard in the piece. The composer marks this moment by having the piano play angelic triplets, a new accompaniment texture, and by instructing the strings to play close to the bridge, producing a distant, shining, overtone-filled timbre. After the composer returns to fragmentary juxtapositions in the recapitulation section, we yearn to get back to the world of that prayer tune and to hear a real melody one last time—a desire that Schumann satisfies to great effect right before the end of the movement.

The second, scherzo movement, too, is markedly unmelodic. It is built on an infectious, skipping, rhythmic gesture that the strings and piano use to chase one another around. The brief contrasting trio, consisting of winding scale figures in canon, produces shimmering waves of sound that break only when the snappy gestures of the scherzo return. In the third movement, all the fun of the scherzo disappears. The violin plays a somber line in A minor that recalls the two- and three-part inventions of J. S. Bach. The cello eventually responds with moderately more hopeful music before the two string players begin a loving duet. It is as if Schumann has conserved his melodic ambitions for this Langsam, where the instruments at last sing an abundance of tunes for one another, reveling in the power of a sustained musical line.

The third movement ends on an unresolved dominant harmony, which gives this whole melancholy chapter the character of a prelude that is answered by the sustained optimism of the D-major finale. For all its celebratory energy, the closing Mit Feuer never quite makes it to a proper cadence. Instead, we know the work is coming to a close when the music gets faster and faster, the instruments bang away on some wild syncopations, and the cello and violin double their notes to run up and down the strings, teaming up to match the joyous sound pouring out of the piano.

Trio No. 1 in D minor for Piano, Violin, and Cello, Op. 63
Robert Schumann
  • Born June 8, 1810, in Zwickau, Saxony
  • Died July 29, 1856, in Endenich, near Bonn
  • Composed in 1847
  • First CMS performance on January 6, 1974, by pianist Richard Goode, violinist Jaime Laredo, and cellist Lynn Harrell
  • Duration: 33 minutes

Felix Mendelssohn maintained a healthy friendship with Clara and Robert Schumann for much of his life. Felix advocated for Robert’s music by planning and conducting performances; Robert published supportive reviews of Felix’s new works; and Clara and Felix regularly performed together as a piano duo. Still, they had their differences. Music came a bit more easily to Felix than it did to Robert—a source of jealousy that he admitted to Clara during their courtship: “I know exactly how I compare with him as a musician. I could still learn from him for years. But perhaps he could also learn something from me. If I had grown up in circumstances similar to his, destined from childhood for music, I might equal and even surpass them all.”

The relative fluency with which the composers approached their craft resulted in differences of taste and attitude. For example, after he heard Felix conduct Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Robert felt that “Mendelssohn took the first movement unbelievably fast; it was so distressing to me that I walked out on the spot,” while Felix’s feeling was that he “never would have imagined it otherwise.” For Mendelssohn, the D-minor passions of that opening movement could be well expressed with fleet, unabated energy; for Schumann, something more wandering and contemplative was needed.

Felix’s 1839 Piano Trio in D minor (Op. 49) was one of Robert’s and Clara’s favorite works. When both Schumanns took to writing piano trios in the 1840s, Mendelssohn’s example was no doubt at the back of their minds. At the same time, Robert’s 1847 Trio in D minor (Op. 63) does more to distinguish his style from that of his friend than to show what they shared. Where Felix’s trio is full of passionate, pianistic virtuosity and singable lines that repeat numerous times to articulate different sections, Robert’s piece approaches melody and structure with a churning density that only truly abates in the work’s final minutes.

Schumann is notably stingy with the tunes in the first movement of this trio. The opening Mit Energie und Leidenschaft is full of gestures—fragments that point toward some melodic outgrowth but instead run into one another, never quite building to something that feels complete or singable. When, in the middle of a massive development section, Schumann clears the air and the cello at last presents a long, prayer-like line, it is remarkable not just because it is a late-emerging, brand-new melody, but because it’s the first proper tune we’ve heard in the piece. The composer marks this moment by having the piano play angelic triplets, a new accompaniment texture, and by instructing the strings to play close to the bridge, producing a distant, shining, overtone-filled timbre. After the composer returns to fragmentary juxtapositions in the recapitulation section, we yearn to get back to the world of that prayer tune and to hear a real melody one last time—a desire that Schumann satisfies to great effect right before the end of the movement.

The second, scherzo movement, too, is markedly unmelodic. It is built on an infectious, skipping, rhythmic gesture that the strings and piano use to chase one another around. The brief contrasting trio, consisting of winding scale figures in canon, produces shimmering waves of sound that break only when the snappy gestures of the scherzo return. In the third movement, all the fun of the scherzo disappears. The violin plays a somber line in A minor that recalls the two- and three-part inventions of J. S. Bach. The cello eventually responds with moderately more hopeful music before the two string players begin a loving duet. It is as if Schumann has conserved his melodic ambitions for this Langsam, where the instruments at last sing an abundance of tunes for one another, reveling in the power of a sustained musical line.

The third movement ends on an unresolved dominant harmony, which gives this whole melancholy chapter the character of a prelude that is answered by the sustained optimism of the D-major finale. For all its celebratory energy, the closing Mit Feuer never quite makes it to a proper cadence. Instead, we know the work is coming to a close when the music gets faster and faster, the instruments bang away on some wild syncopations, and the cello and violin double their notes to run up and down the strings, teaming up to match the joyous sound pouring out of the piano.