Piano Trio No. 1 (Brahms)

The Piano Trio in B major, Op. 8, by Johannes Brahms was completed in January 1854, when the composer was only twenty years old, published in November 1854 and premiered on 13 October 1855 in Danzig. It has often been mistakenly claimed that the first performance had taken place in the United States. Brahms produced a revised version of the work in summer 1889 that shows significant alterations so that it may even be regarded as a distinct (fourth) piano trio. This “New Edition” (Neue Ausgabe), as he called it, was premiered on 10 January 1890 in Budapest and published in February 1891. The trio is scored for piano, violin and cello, and it is the only work of Brahms to exist today in two published versions, although it is almost always the revised version that is being performed today. Among the piano trios known to have been written by Brahms it is the only one that ends in a minor key. The design of the work is monotonal, two movements are in the key of B major, two in B minor. It is also among the few multi-movement works to begin in a major key and end in the tonic minor (another example being Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony).

The trio is in four movements:

Original version (1854): (a performance typically takes around 42 minutes)

Revised version (Neue Ausgabe) (1889): (a performance typically takes around 33 minutes)

(B major, 4/4, alla breve in revised version)

This movement is a sonata form movement in B major. It begins with a broad theme in the cello and piano and builds in intensity. Brahms made little alterations in the first roughly 80 bars, but omitted little interjections by the violin that he supposedly only included in the first version to meet a desire of Joseph Joachim. In the first trio, the second group in G♯ minor and E major (b. 126) includes various thematic elements. Instead of repeating all elements, the recapitulation presents a fugue in stile antico (b. 354) that takes up one of the thematic cells of the exposition. In the revised trio, the first subject is counterpoised by a more delicate anacrustic second theme in G♯ minor. In a new Tranquillo-coda, both subjects are combined to produce a serene impression.

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Wikipedia