This document includes in-depth, detailed notes regarding Clara Schumann's 'Piano Trio in Gm Op,. 17', 1st Movement, one of the set works of the Pearson AS/A level music course. All musical elements are explored as well as some wider context around the style of piece, and context around the compose...
Clara Schumann - ‘Piano Trio in Gm Op. 17’, 1st Movement
Revision Notes
The Schumann Family
● Clara was brought up by her father, Friedrich Wieck, a gifted piano teacher, and
began her performing career as a child. In her teens Clara performed around Europe,
laying the foundations for a lifelong career.
● The composer Robert Schumann was a pupil of Clara's father, and the two married
in 1840.
Life as a female composer
● Most of her works feature the piano. Clara's composing decreased as her family
responsibilities became more and more difficult (she gave birth to eight children, but
only four survived).
● In addition to running the household, she was also the main earner as Robert
Schumann earned little money as a composer and later in life suffered from mental
illness, causing his final years to be spent in an asylum.
● Clara knew, and worked, with Joseph Joachim, one of the leading violinists of the
19th century. She also knew, and had famous correspondence with, Johannes
Brahms, whose composing she encouraged.
Romantic Period (1820 - 1900)
● Not just a musical idea but co-existed with similar ideas in literature and art. This
period was a time of a lot of upheaval and change in Europe, for example the French
revolution. People began to rebel against the norm and the establishment and there
was more political, social thought and discussion. Composers, poets and
philosophers would often meet and discuss their work.
● The romantic period grew out of and rapidly away from Classicism so that by the end
of the 19th-century the music was usually very different from that in the early
19th-century.
● Has genres and forms common to Classicism - Symphony. Concerto etc. but there
were new ideas such as tone poems and the Classical idea of a Symphony with 4
movements with set tempos became less prominent. Structures such as binary,
ternary became difficult to define and often less balanced. There was still a
commitment to the Classically-based fundamentals of tonality but there was
increasingly more complex harmony and greater use of chromaticism.
● Music was meant to mean something. As such trends began such as music to tell a
story: Programme music and for music to represent a country or region: Nationalism.
These ideas had begun to take hold in the Classical period with Beethoven's Pastoral
Symphony (6th) telling a story of a walk in the countryside and his 'Eroica' Symphony
(3rd) about Napoléon (ish). He also broke the rules of Symphony by adding a chorus
to the finale of the 9th (Ode to Joy).
, Chamber Music
● A Piano Trio is a type of chamber music - named such because it was performed in a
room or chamber.
● Unlike a Symphony there is only one instrument to a part.
● Chamber music was popular throughout the musical periods because it did not
require a large room or a concert hall. Often popular Operas or Symphonies were
re-orchestrated into Chamber works.
● The main form of chamber music in the Baroque period was the Trio Sonata (two
soloists and a basso continuo) which later evolved into the String Quartet which is
still one of the main forms of chamber music now.
● Chamber music in the Baroque and Classical period was predominantly strings or
keyboard based. Chamber music that involved the keyboard in the Classical period
such as Trios were essentially keyboard works with accompaniment and often string
parts could be removed with little harm to the music. However by the Romantic
period each instrument played an equally (ish) note.
● During the Romantic period a wider range of Chamber music began to appear such
as Piano Quartets or Quintets and Wind Chamber music became more popular too.
By the 20th Century composers such as Bela Bartok were even adding voices to
chamber music.
● Many Romantic composers composed no Chamber music at all because they could
not showcase powerful orchestral and it did not have the persona expressiveness of
solo music. The uber Romantics Berlioz, Liszt and Wagner composed no Chamber
music, whereas Romantic composers more influenced by the Classical tradition such
as Schubert, Brahms, Mendelssohn and both Schumanns.
The Piece
● The Piano Trio (piano, violin and cello) was one of the most important forms of
chamber music from the late 18th to well into the 19th century.
● Much chamber music was written for performance in the salons of the patrons and
performers. Concert performances of trios such as this became more common as the
century progressed.
● The writing for the three instruments is not that virtuosic which may be because Clara
Schumann wanted it to be accessible to the increased middle class and be printed
and sold, plus affordable Pianos could not always meet the demands of virtuosic
writing at that time.
● Composers in the Classical style, such as Mozart and Haydn, had established the
form, and Beethoven and Schubert developed it further in the early Romantic style.
● The piece was written in 1846, a year in which she gave the premiere of Robert
Schumann's piano-concerto and had her fourth child.
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