Mendelssohn’s D minor Piano Trio represents the new Romantic age with a dizzying freshness and vitality. Its effortless formal perfection and winning themes, frequently announced on the cello, present a work of often tormented Romanticism that could never have been written by Beethoven who was already dead for only 12 years back in 1839.
The stormy aspects of the first movement transform the innocent, major second theme into the minor and ensuing frenzied coda where the spirit of Chopin is nearby in the whirling piano figuration.
The second movement is like a song without words, and before long the Scherzo arrives, and it is something that Mendelssohn could have copyrighted – a fairy dance of exhilarating virtuosity.
But it is at the Finale that the true originality of this work is revealed, via a secret musical agent of which Schumann would have been proud. Moments of particular emotional intensity in the work are marked by the appearance of plaintive themes that are worked into many different styles and keys to bring the piece to its end.
I played this trio many times with good friends many years ago.
Listen now to Mendelssohn’s Well-known Trio #1, and enjoy it!
