Piano Trio No. 2 (Mendelssohn)

Felix Mendelssohn's Piano Trio No. 2 in C minor, Op. 66 was composed in 1845 and published in February 1846.^[1] The work is scored for a standard piano trio consisting of violin, cello and piano. Mendelssohn dedicated the work to the violinist Louis Spohr, who played through the piece with the composer at least once.

Movements

The trio has four movements:

Allegro energico e con fuoco (C minor)
Andante espressivo (E-flat major)
Scherzo: Molto allegro quasi presto (G minor)
Finale: Allegro appassionato (C minor, ending in C major)

A typical performance lasts just under 30 minutes.

A notable feature of the finale of this work is its use of the melody of a chorale taken from the sixteenth-century Genevan psalter Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit, also known as Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ, as the culminating melody. The tune is known in English as Old Hundredth from its association with the 100th Psalm and is commonly sung to the lyrics "Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow."

The opening theme of the finale was adopted by Brahms for the Scherzo of his Piano Sonata No. 3, Op. 5, and Brahms also used the opening of the first movement of this trio as the basis for the piano line in the finale of his Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor, Op. 60.

References

↑ See Mendelssohn Essays, p. 245, at Google Books (2013), ed. R. Larry Todd, Routledge, Part II.7. The Chamber Music of Mendelssohn: drafted 1845, retouched during the summer, sent in February 1846 with a dedication to Spohr and published the same month by Breitkopf and Novello.

External links

Piano Trio No. 2: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
Performance of Piano Trio No. 2 by the Claremont Trio from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in MP3 format

Chamber music by Felix Mendelssohn

String quartets	String Quartet No. 1 in E-flat major, Op. 12 String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 13 String Quartet No. 3 in D major, Op. 44, No. 1 String Quartet No. 4 in E minor, Op. 44, No. 2 String Quartet No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 44, No. 3 String Quartet No. 6 in F minor, Op. 80 Four Pieces for String Quartet, Op. 81 12 Fugues for String Quartet (1821) String Quartet in E-flat major (1823)

String quintets and octets	String Quintet No. 1 in A major, Op. 18 String Quintet No. 2 in B-flat major, Op. 87 Octet in E-flat major, Op. 20

String sonatas	Cello Sonata No. 1 in B-flat major, Op. 45 Cello Sonata No. 2 in D major, Op. 58 Viola Sonata in C minor (1823-4) Violin Sonata in F minor, Op. 4 Violin Sonata in F major (1820) Violin Sonata in F major (1838)

Piano trios, quartets and sextets	Piano Trio in C minor (1820) Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 49 Piano Trio No. 2 in C minor, Op. 66 Piano Quartet No. 1 in C minor, Op. 1 Piano Quartet No. 2 in F minor, Op. 2 Piano Quartet No. 3 in B minor, Op. 3 Piano Quartet in D minor (1821) Piano Sextet in D major, Op. 110

Works for clarinet	Clarinet Sonata in E-flat major (1824) Concert Piece No. 1 in F minor, Op. 113 Concert Piece No. 2 in D minor, Op. 114

List of compositions by Felix Mendelssohn

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Saturday, April 09, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.