Florestan Trio

Robert Schumann wrote his First and Second Piano Trios in 1847, after a period of intense concentration on such works of musical drama as 'Genoveva', his only opera, and 'Szenen aus Goethes Faust'. Traces of them are to be found in the drama and ornate musical language that characterise the two trios. Both works demonstrate Schumann's contrapuntal skills, the result of years studying Bach's fugues. In 1845 Clara Schumann had also started on a thorough study of counterpoint, infected by her husband's passion for the fugue. Her present for his thirty-fifth birthday was the 'Three Preludes and Fugues opus 16', in which she had attempted to combine Bach's fugue with the Romantic characteristic piece. To crown her study of counterpoint Clara wanted to produce a masterpiece in the form of a work of chamber music on a large scale. From May to September 1846 she worked on her Piano Trio in G minor. She probably opted for a piano trio because she wanted to take up the challenge of composing in a form that Robert had several times described as terribly difficult. It seems that Beethoven and Schubert's perfect examples of the genre had a paralyzing effect on him. It was Clara's abundantly successful effort that prompted him to finally devote himself to the piano trio in 1847.