Schubert: Complete Piano Trios (2CD)

Schubert’s two piano trios were composed late in his short life (his only trio prior to these is the short B flat trio movement D28 of 1812), probably in late 1827 and the summer of 1828, the year of his death. They are vast works, worthy of Schumann’s comment on Schubert’s Ninth Symphony of being of ‘heavenly length’. Although structured along similar lines to Beethoven’s piano trios, Schubert’s trios inhabit a different world to the older composer’s ‘Ghost’ or ‘Archduke’ works. Beethoven revelled in drama and complex and ingenious textures. Schubert concentrates instead on beautiful tunes, and eloquent dialogues between the three players. The music of the Austrian countryside permeates these works, and although they date from Schubert’s last months, they contain little of the world weariness and desolation of Winterreisse, the late sonatas or the proto-Mahlerian slow movement of the Tenth Symphony D936a. The trios gained popularity soon after their posthumous publication in the 1830s – and were championed by influential figures such as Schumann and Brahms. D898 benefited from an early gramophone recording in the 1920s by Cortot, Casals and Thibaud. The Notturno D897 has also proved popular, and started life as the slow movement to D898, but Schubert felt it was too long.