Many years ago, two friends and I formed a Trio. We played several Mozart trios, some trios by Brahms, and also the three early trios by Beethoven. These are designated Opus 1 number 1, Opus 1 number 2, and Opus 1 number 3.
In this new recording, Trio Goya offers unique accounts of Beethoven’s early piano trios, revealing on period instruments and in the magical acoustic of the recording site
the extraordinary range of colors and narratives that these pieces suggest.
Beethoven’s Opus 1 features amongst Trio Goya’s central repertoire, played regularly in the UK’s most prestigious venues and beyond. After a recent Wigmore Hall concert, Early Music Today wrote that ‘Trio Goya sent us home spinning on the delights and laughter of early Beethoven. His piano trio opus 1 No. 1 frothed and bubbled down the finale’s theme, the musicians swept along by their own hell for- leather, immaculately kept tempo.’
These pieces mark a kind of beginning in Beethoven’s career. They were indeed planned and executed, over a period of two years, with unprecedented care and skill; they mark the start of a new creative period for the young genius, which is distinct from the younger Bonn years and is fully deserving of the label ‘first maturity’ conferred by the musicologist Lewis Lockwood.
Here is music from this recording:
