Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 49

The piece opens with one of the most arresting moments in chamber music: a long, singing cello melody launched immediately over agitated, syncopated piano chords underneath, as if a great liner sweeping through choppy seas. Composed in the summer of 1839 and praised by Robert Schumann as 'the master trio of our age', it is cast in four movements, moving through an urgent first movement, a gentle song-without-words slow movement, a fleet-footed Scherzo, and a driving finale that ends by turning from D minor to a radiant D major. After Mendelssohn showed a draft to his friend Ferdinand Hiller, Hiller persuaded him to rework the piano part in the more modern manner of Chopin and Liszt, which gave the finished piece its unusually virtuosic yet transparent keyboard writing.

What to listen for

In the slow second movement, the piano introduces a quiet, sustained melody and the strings then take it up, but the texture shifts when the piano moves from major to minor, launching a more impassioned central section built on a descending melodic idea that the violin had briefly touched on at the close of the first movement. In the finale, watch for the moment near the end when the cello breaks through with a broad, singing theme that reasserts the lyrical side of the piece before the final rush to the close in D major.

Recommended rendition

The Florestan Trio's 2005 Hyperion recording has been frequently cited by Gramophone and The Times for its combination of clarity, rhythmic drive, and chamber-music balance among the three players.

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