Robert Schumann, 1810-1856
Piano Trio No. 3 in g minor, Op. 110, 1851
The trio opens with one of Schumann's finest sonata movements. Sweeping, bold and dark, a long, articulated melody with arpeggiated flourishes establishes the key motifs that saturate the movement. There are two primary themes. The second is characteristically softer and more lyrical but complemented by a variation of the obstinate arpeggio as a counterpoint. The development features a delicious surprise: a deft, fugato episode with the tiniest shard of a subject, pointed pizzicato and a chromatic countersubject seamlessly derived from a background piano figure. The concluding bars whip the drama into a turbulent froth that evaporates in suspense, the air charged with tiny sparkles recalling the fugato with a Mendelssohnian magic.
The word "Romantic" has many connotations. First, there is the soft lit, languorous sharing of the hearts between two lovers in sumptuous privacy. Schumann's slow movement gives us this setting: an exquisite operatic duet for violin and cello with all the loving and intertwined filigree these instruments can "sing." Its motion sustains a gentle, romantic waltz. But "Romantic" in the sense of Schumann's historical period and artistic style implies a much broader adventurousness than "romance". Drama, heroism and tragedy, the wild snares of natural passion and bold juxtapositions are the qualities of Schumann's music that make it quintessentially romantic. The same slow movement embodies this as well: in the midst of a quiet pas de deux, a dark chromatic mountain rears its stormy head. There is danger and challenge ahead along with a dizzy memory of the swirling arpeggio from the trio's first bars. Schumann the storyteller succumbs to a hallucination. The storm abates, a rose petal softly drops on the linen, and Schumann cradles us back into a dream.
One central vein in the Romantic tradition is literary. Schumann the reader, the writer and the storyteller was also the great composer of character pieces, little tableaux like illustrated pages in a book with narrative suggestions and recurring dramatis personae. The final two movements show this aspect of Schumann in a series of short studies running through a scherzo with two trios and a lengthy, episodic rondo marked "energetically, with humor." There are suggestive thematic links between the two movements and each tells a kind of fairy tale in multiple acts. The finale features more dance and multiple instances of Schumann's inspired inclination for the march, proud and valorous, as well as foolhardy and satirical. This patchwork of miniatures includes some final amorous swells and even an additional colorful swatch of fugato for an entr'acte. A most dramatic trio in g minor ends with a carnival. Schumann composed this third piano trio towards the end of his life, a time in which he was unquestionably in the grips of incipient madness. The trio is sometimes criticized for its haphazardness and repetition yet it is studded with jewels and suffused with a personality that is so recognizably and purely Schumann's. Who will listen perchance to truly follow his phantasmagoric musical imagination through this tale of emphatic visions?
