3rd Haydneum Eszterháza Festival / Haydn and Schubert Piano Trios

The 18th century was simultaneously the century of Baroque and Rococo, sentimentalism and enlightenment, Bach and Händel, Haydn and Mozart. What’s more, this rather culturally rich period also brought about a spectacular transformation in the function of keyboard instruments. Although such instruments served as essential pillars of harmony in earlier periods, their role gradually changed from the middle of the 18th century onward. The basso continuo, the continuous chordal joining of music, became unnecessary at that time, thus releasing the keyboard instruments from their previous duty.

All of this was perhaps most clearly apparent in chamber music. Since from the second half of the century, the functional correlations of harmonies required less and less stabilizing and accompanying contribution from chordal instruments, the harpsichord with its metallic sound could slowly be replaced by the fortepiano with its hammer mechanism and smoother timbre, the latter being more than capable of participating in the thematic discourse with their string (or even wind) counterparts. The Trios composed by Haydn in 1795, at the end of his second trip to London, are great examples of this innovation (including the Hungarian-style rondo within the G major piece, which plays with Romani and Verbunkos elements). The two 1827 works by Schubert, Piano Trio in B-flat major and the slower piece in E-flat major, also known as Notturno, which was perhaps originally intended by the author to be part of the Trio; however, it serves as a better example for how 19th-century artists were working on weaving the keyboard instrument with its rich timbre and rapid movements into the texture of chamber music.