Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

String Trio in B flat, D.581

Allegro moderato
Andante
Minuetto e Trio
Rondo: Allegretto

It’s impossible to categorise such a huge, varied and masterful body of chamber music as Schubert’s, but in his instrumental works, at least, there are three distinct types. There are the "romantic" pieces, broad, deeply personal and intensely expressive: think of the C major Quintet, G major Quartet and C minor Quartettsatz. There are the "serenades", big, cheerful works in outdoor mood, such as the Octet and the "Trout" Quintet. And then there is the "classical" Schubert, playful, measured and Mozartian in manner - the Fifth Symphony and the majority of the early string quartets. Schubert wrote two string trios, both in B flat, and they fall into different categories of this stylistic division. In September 1816 he wrote a movement for trio in which poignant emotion finds expression in the purest of lyrical instrumental writing. As with the B minor Symphony and C minor Quartettsatz this work (D.471) remained incomplete, although, like them, it merits and receives frequent performances in its unfinished state. One year later he began and carried to completion a second String Trio (D.581), also in B flat, this time in his most perfect classical manner.

In form, this second trio is a model of clarity and concision. There is a sonata-form first movement with clearly recognizable subject-groups, while the Andante is in two tidy halves with a minor-key central section. The Minuet and closing Rondo offer nothing to contradict the textbooks. There are echoes of Haydn and Mozart; most obviously in the first subjects of the Andante and the Rondo, melodies of the type that Donald Tovey, writing about Haydn, called "exquisitely kittenish". And yet the piece is unmistakably Schubert’s. The melodies have that lilt, the harmonies that Schubertian unpredictability, and – for all Schubert’s mastery of this most demanding of instrumental combinations – he uses the instruments in ways which Mozart would never have allowed himself. There is un-classically high writing for cello and viola at the opening of the Minuet, and a certain busy-ness in accompanying and decorative figures throughout the work, which, if perhaps slightly unidiomatic for the instruments, is wonderfully idiomatic for Schubert. And in the minor-key interlude in the middle of the Andante we hear the faintest anticipation of the agonized outbursts that tear through the hearts of the slow movements of the C major Quintet, the "Unfinished" Symphony and the A major Piano Sonata (D.959). But these are still very distant.

We don’t know exactly when or where this Trio was first performed, but throughout 1816-17 the 19-year old composer lodged in a number of different friends’ houses in Vienna. This period saw the first of the famous "Schubertiads", and we can safely assume that he wrote the trios for performance at such evenings, perhaps at his friends Otto Hatwig’s or Ignaz von Sonnleithner’s homes. Schubert would have taken the viola part – so he would have meant the charming German dance for solo viola in the third movement’s trio for himself. Throughout the piece, it’s this combination of the perfectly classical and the affectionately personal that gives the Trio its distinctive character, and its special place in Schubert’s music. "At this point" wrote the critic William Mann "Schubert, the chamber musician, passes out of his apprenticeship, for the String Trio in B flat major (D.581), though concise and unpretentious, is certainly a masterpiece; searching in tonality, utterly characteristic and poised in its themes, and blessed with felicitous texture – a work to cherish."

R.G. Bratby 2002


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