Ludwig van Beethoven - String Trio 전곡

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

 

 

Ludwig van Beethoven

Portrait by Joseph Karl Stieler, 1820

baptised 17 December 1770 – 26 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical music repertoire and span the transition from the Classical period to the Romantic era in classical music. His career has conventionally been divided into early, middle, and late periods. His early period, during which he forged his craft, is typically considered to have lasted until 1802. From 1802 to around 1812, his middle period showed an individual development from the styles of Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and is sometimes characterized as heroic. During this time, he began to suffer increasingly from deafness. In his late period, from 1812 to 1827, he extended his innovations in musical form and expression.

 

String Trio 전곡

 

 Beethoven wrote five string trios, the final being composed in 1798. Most historians posit that

Beethoven abandoned the form once he began writing string quartets in that same year. However, we need not consider the string trio an “inferior” form. In the hands of the inventive craftsman Beethoven, the sonic possibilities are considerable even without a second violin.

 

String Trio No. 1 in E-flat major, Op. 3 (1792-96)
dedicated to the Countess of Browne

I. Allegro con brio
II. Andante
III. Menuetto. Allegretto
IV. Adagio
V. Menuetto. Moderato
VI. Finale. Allegro

 

The String Trio in Eb, Op. 3, was Beethoven’s first string ensemble work, modeled after Mozart’s

famous Divertimento for String Trio (K.563) of 1788. 

 It brought the young Beethoven international attention. The first movement, Allegro con brio, is in sonata form and moves through a broad theme into a violin/cello duet. The composition proceeds

with exciting interplay among the three instruments, to conclude with an ebullient Allegro.

 

 

2. Serenade in D major, Op. 8 (1795-97) (38:37)

I. Marcia. Allegro; Adagio
II. Menuetto. Allegretto
III. Adagio (D minor)
IV. Allegretto alla polacca (F major)
V. Tema con variazioni. Andante quasi allegretto

 

The Op. 8 Serenade for string trio, published in 1797, is music for a light evening's entertainment in a social setting, or for amateurs to play. Carloads of such serenades, cassations, divertimentos, Nachtmusiks, and notturnos were published and played in the late 1700s, but they are little known today. Aside from a few repertory staples by Mozart, most of them are charming but unmemorable, and the only ones that get played in concert now are by composers who are famous for other reasons. Beethoven composed less light music, and enjoyed it less, than most composers. The Serenade is graceful, attractive music, but lacks the gripping musical ideas that make so much of Beethoven's music unforgettable.

There are nonetheless some of the features that got Beethoven a reputation for trying too hard to be novel and unusual, and clever touches that mark the Serenade as the product of a giant at play. In the March that begins and ends the work, the cello occasionally finds itself playing four 16th notes against three 8th notes in the upper parts, which is more rhythmic complexity and ambiguity than a march needs. The Minuet begins with a bang and ends with a few plucks, and the slow movement is interrupted by a half-minute-long scherzo in which the violin and viola scamper daintily while the cello pounds away impatiently.

There are foreshadowings of the later Beethoven. The Andante quasi allegretto is a set of variations on a theme that he later turned into a song titled "Sanft wie die Frühlingsohne" (Soft as the Sun in Spring), and the short-short-short-long motif that Beethoven used so often in his "Middle period" works - most famously in the Fifth Symphony - makes an early appearance in the March.

Publisher info:
Ludwig van Beethovens Werke, Serie 7:
Trios für Violine, Bratsche und Violoncell, Nr.58
Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1862-90. Plate B.58.
Copyright:
Public Domain

 

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The String Trios, Op. 9 were composed by Ludwig van Beethoven in 1797–98. He published them 

in Vienna in 1799, with a dedication to his patron Count Johann Georg von Browne (de) (1767–1827)They were first performed by the violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh with two colleagues from his string quartet. According to the violinist and conductor Angus Watson, these were probably Franz Weiss

on viola and either Nikolaus Kraft or his father Anton on cello.

 

The Op. 9 trios are among the most important early chamber works by Beethoven. Each of the three works consists of four movements, like the then-recent Haydn symphonies. By this time Beethoven may well have been writing in the chamber/string genre as a means of testing his skills in the symphonic realm, which he was a bit hesitant to enter owing to Haydn's dominance of the field. Whatever his motives, he turned out three works whose chamber instrumentation perfectly suits their music.

The score to the work was first published in 1798, along with those of the other two Op. 9 Trios.

All three were dedicated to Count Johann Georg von Browne, a Russian army Officer (of Irish extraction!) who was one of Beethoven's leading patrons.

3. String Trio No. 2, Op. 9 No. 1
Dedicated to Count Johann Georg von Browne-Camus

1. Adagio - Allegro con brio
2. Adagio, ma non tanto, e cantabile
3. Scherzo Allegro
4. Presto

4. String Quartet No. 3, Op. 9, No. 2
Dedicated to Countess Browne

1. Allegretto
2. Andante quasi allegretto
3. Menuetto - Allegro
4. Presto

5. String Trio No. 4, Op. 9, No. 3

1. Allegro con spirito
2. Adagio con espressione
3. Scherzo - Allegro molto e vivace
4. Finale - Presto

Grumiaux Trio
Arthur Grumiaux, violin
Georges Janzer, viola
Eva Czako, cello

 

 

Beethoven's trios for violin, viola, and cello remain among his least-played works. They seem to point back to the occasional chamber music of the Classical period, and if they're not given the proper attention, that's exactly what they do. But Beethoven himself thought enough even of the very early String Trio in E flat major, Op. 3 (1794), to supervise a keyboard arrangement of the work in the 1810s, and the Op. 9 set heard here, composed in 1798, is almost as ambitious as the group of Op. 18 string quartets that followed it by about a year, and for which it can be seen as a kind of study.

 

 

 

 

 

Although this opus does not contain the most played works by Beethoven it was a significant milestone in his development as a composer. At the time of publication the 28-year old Beethoven regarded the trios as his best compositions.^[2] The trios can be seen as a part of the preparation for the upcoming string quartets, which became the leading genre among his chamber music. The musicologist Gerald Abraham has remarked that in terms of their style and aesthetic value the string trios of Op. 9 rank with Beethoven's first string quartets which ousted the trios from the concert halls. Beethoven composed no further trios after the first quartets (Op. 18) were published in 1801.^[3] Each trio is of four movements with sonata form in the first movements, suggesting that Beethoven did not intend them to be light chamber pieces.^[4]

 

 

 

The most vigorous of the three trios is perhaps the G major, with the fast movements' thematic richness and almost symphonic elaborations especially in the first Allegro. The Adagio in E major resembles in its beauty and melancholic atmosphere other slow movements written by Beethoven at that time. The trio ends with a brilliant and virtuoso Presto.

 

 

 

Trio in D major is the most traditional piece in the opus. It lacks the G major's symphonic effects but conveys a finely subtle chamber music with warm and intimate atmosphere. However the slow movement in D minor is perhaps the saddest piece in the opus.

 

 

 

The last trio, in C minor, brings the most energy and novelty with highly passionate tone. C minor

 

is one of Beethoven's most important keys. Three of his piano sonatas and the fifth symphony was written in C minor, for instance.

 

 

 

This trio invokes those later works' power and peculiar character so typical of Beethoven. Dynamic effects, sharp contrasts in rhythm, harmonic confrontations among other means of music provide momentum and the tone of anxiety. By contrast, the Adagio brings peace and resignation in C major, with a more lively episode in E flat major in the middle of the movement. Both the Scherzo and the Finale continue the passionate and energetic storm of the first movement.