Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) : Complete Piano Trio
CD1
Piano Trio No. 27 in C major, Hob.XV:27
Piano Trio No. 19 in G minor, Hob.XV:19
Piano Trio No. 37 in F major, Hob.XV:37
Piano Trio No. 12 in E minor, Hob.XV:12
Piano Trio No. 32 in G major, Hob.XV:32
CD2
Piano Trio No. 25 in G major, Hob.XV:25, "Gypsy Trio"
Piano Trio No. 16 in D major, Hob.XV:16
Piano Trio No. 17 in F major, Hob.XV:17
Piano Trio No. 15 in G major, Hob.XV:15
Piano Trio No. 2 in F major, Hob.XV:2
CD3
Piano Trio No. 14 in A flat major, Hob.XV:14
Piano Trio No. 34 in E major, Hob.XV:34
Partita in F minor, Hob.XV:f1
Piano Trio No. 8 in B flat major, Hob.XV:8
Piano Trio No. 36 in E flat major, Hob.XV:36
CD4
Piano Trio No. 24 in D major, Hob.XV:24
Piano Trio No. 35 in A major, Hob.XV:35
Piano Trio No. 7 in D major, Hob.XV:7
Piano Trio No. 1 in G minor, Hob.XV:1
CD5
Piano Trio No. 21 in C major, Hob.XV:21
Piano Trio No. 6 in F major, Hob.XV:6
Piano Trio No. 18 in A major, Hob.XV:18
Piano Trio No. 22 in E flat major, Hob.XV:22
Piano Trio No. 9 in A major, Hob.XV:9
CD6
Piano Trio No. 29 in E flat major, Hob.XV:29
Piano Trio No. 26 in F sharp minor, Hob.XV:26
Piano Trio No. 40 in F major, Hob.XV:40
Piano Trio No. 23 in D minor, Hob.XV:23
Piano Trio No. 10 in E flat major, Hob.XV:10
CD7
Piano Trio No. 20 in B flat major, Hob.XV:20
Piano Trio No. 13 in C minor, Hob.XV:13
Divertimento in C major, Hob.XV:C1
Piano Trio No. 28 in E major, Hob.XV:28
Piano Trio No. 38 in B flat major, Hob.XV:38
CD8
Piano Trio No. 30 in E flat major, Hob.XV:30
Piano Trio No. 41 in G major, Hob.XV:41
Piano Trio No. 31 in E flat minor, Hob.XV:31
Piano Trio No. 5 in G major, Hob.XV:5
Piano Trio No. 11 in E flat major, Hob.XV:11
Haydn Trio Eisenstadt
Recorded 1998-2007
THE SALON MUSIC of COUNTS and PRINCES
Musical entertainment was an essential feature in eighteenth century Vienna, when counts and princes spared no effort to outvie each other with feasts and gala dinners. Not just culinary delights were served up in palace salons; many gems of chamber music stem from this period. The situation meant that special compositions were commissioned for a variety of occasions, and these compositions were provided by geniuses such as Mozart, Beethoven and also Haydn. In the mid-1750s Haydn was living in Vienna without a secure job, working as a freelancer as one would say today. He earned his living by teaching and playing music by day, composing and further developing his own musical language by night. Contract work was therefore very welcome: only gradually did he establish ties with various aristocratic families. In 1757 these ties finally brought him a permanent position as musical director for Count Morzin. His early piano trios, which have little in common with later works in this genre, are from this period. Haydn composed these in the style of baroque trio sonatas, the piano part still has basso continuo figuring in places and he mostly chose “Divertimento”, “Capriccio” or “Partita” as a title. These facts also make it more difficult to determine how many piano trios were actually penned by Haydn himself. Even if we assume there are 39 trios - as according to the complete edition of the Joseph Haydn Institute in Cologne - there are still unanswered questions of authenticity, if we take as our basis the Haydn catalogue of 1805 which was put together by Johann Elsler, Haydn’s copyist. According to this catalogue only around a dozen early trios are indisputably Haydn’s.
In 1761 Haydn joined the household of Prince Paul Anton Esterhazy in Eisenstadt and little time for piano trios remained. Symphonies and operas came to the fore and demanded all the energy of the master, who had in the meantime become famous. Haydn commanded great respect and was a dependable business partner for national and international publishers. In 1784 the London publisher William Forster released several piano trios, we know today with works by Haydn’s student Ignaz Pleyel amongst them, which Haydn sold to Forster under his own name. In contrast to the earlier trios, the compositions from the 1780s and 1790s have titles such as “Sonate” or “Sonata” - the trios are representative of the genre “piano sonata with accompaniment” in which this time the piano was the focus of attention.
Haydn wrote the later trios, which were created for English publishers, around 1794/1795 in order to satisfy the great demand for this kind of chamber music. Like Kozeluch, Pleyel, Clementi or Dussek he served this market in Vienna as well as London, where a financially powerful clientele for “piano accompanied chamber music” had formed. These “late trios” are however consistently more brilliant and polished as well as demanding far more virtuosity from the musicians. The piano trio genre was greatly in demand, and could be successfully performed with a small number of musicians, which in turn meant it became more and more popular in the salons of the upper middle classes for evenings of family music-making, and was no longer only found in the homes of noble families.
This complete recording makes it possible to understand not only the development of the genre itself but also Haydn’s ever more polished musical language and instrumentation. The multi award-winning HAYDN TRIO EISENSTADT provide clear evidence here that every opus is a long way from being written off as “utility music”. ( Phoenix Edition )
