A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Trio

by Frederick Corder

TRIO. A composition for three voices or instruments. [See Terzetto.] The term is also applied to the secondary movement of a march, minuet, and many other kinds of dance music.

I. The Trio proper was originally called Sonata a tre, being in fact a sonata for three instruments, such as Bach affords us specimens of in a sonata for flute, violin and figured bass, and another for 2 violins and ditto (Bachgesellschaft, vol. ix. 1859). Handel also left several trios for strings, besides one for oboe, violin, and viola. These compositions are all for two more or less florid parts in contrapuntal style upon a ground bass, and gradually paved the way for the string quartet. When the pianoforte came to form a part of the combination, Pianoforte trios, as they are called, caused all others to retire into the background, instances of modern string trios being rare. Trios for three stringed instruments are felt to labour under the disadvantage of producing an insufficient body of tone, and a free use of double stops is necessary if complete chords are desired. The string trio therefore demands music of a florid, polyphonic, Bachish character (if we may use such an expression), rather than matter built on a harmonic basis, and Beethoven has turned his appreciation of this fact to the best account in the three trios op. 9, while on the other hand the greater number of Haydn's string trios are very thin and poor. Mozart's only composition of this kind is the interesting Divertimento in E♭, which is in six movements. Beethoven also composed a little-known Trio for 2 oboes and cor anglais, which he afterwards rewrote for 2 violins and viola (op. 87). Other unusual combinations of instruments are shown in the trios of Reicha for 3 cellos and for 3 horns, of Haydn for 2 flutes and cello, of Kuhlau and Quantz for 3 flutes. One especial kind of trio demands mention here, the Organ trio, a composition in which the three parts are furnished by the two hands on separate manuals and the pedals. Such are the 6 well-known Organ sonatas of J. S. Bach, and in more modern times those of J. G. Schneider, Henry Smart, and Rheinberger.

As regards the large and important class of trios into which the pianoforte enters, it should be noticed that that instrument takes sometimes too prominent and sometimes too unworthy a part. Some of the early Haydn trios, for instance, are entitled Sonatas for Piano with accompaniments of Violin and Cello, and that in C, which stands first in the collections (probably a very early work) is purely a solo sonata, the two stringed instruments scarcely ever doing more than double the melody or bass. The cello indeed constantly performs this ignoble office in the Haydn trios, which are therefore scarcely more worthy of the name than the mass of sonatas and divertissements for piano 'with ad libitum accompaniment for flute or violin and cello' which continued to be written up to the end of the first half of the present century.^[1] Mozart, whose genius inclined more towards polyphony than Haydn's, naturally succeeded better. His Trio in E♭ for piano, clarinet, and viola is the best, those with violin being unpretentious. Of Beethoven's six well-known pianoforte trios that in B♭ (op. 97), being the latest in date (1810), is also the finest. Here we see the most perfect union of the three instruments possible. There is also a trio of his for piano, clarinet, and cello, a not over effective combination, for which he also arranged his Septet. Schubert characteristically^[2] contented himself with the ordinary means at hand, and his two great works in B♭ and E♭ (both 1827) are well known. The modern trio, which begins with Mendelssohn's two in D minor and C minor, is scarcely a legitimate development of the old. The resources and technique of the pianoforte have greatly increased with the improvement of the instrument, but the violin remains where it was. Thus the balance is destroyed, the piano becomes almost equal to an orchestra, and the strings are its humble servants. To compensate them for their want of power it becomes necessary to confine them to the principal melodies, while the piano adds an ever-increasing exuberance in the way of arpeggio accompaniments. In spite of the great beauty of Mendelssohn's two primal types the precedent was a dangerous one, as the too-brilliant trios of Rubinstein, Raff, and others amply demonstrate. On the other hand, Schumann, in his two fine trios in D minor and F major (ops. 63 and 80), in steering clear of this bravura style for the piano—as indeed he always did—has sometimes given the string parts rather the air of orchestral accompaniments; but against this slight defect must be set a wealth of new treatment and many beauties, as in the slow movement of the D minor, a long-drawn melody treated in canon, with an indescribably original effect. There is also the set of four pieces (Mährchenerzahlungen, op. 132) for pianoforte, clarinet, and viola; a late work, and less striking than the trios. It would be unfair to omit mention of Spohr as a trio writer, though in this department, as in most others, he left the art as he found it: and of his five trios the melodious op. 119, in E minor, is the only one now played. Mention should also be made of Sterndale Bennett's solitary specimen in A major, were it only for the original 'Serenade,' in which a melody on the piano is accompanied pizzicato by the strings. Of Raff's four trios, the second (op. 112), in G, is most attractive from the melodious character of its subjects, otherwise it is open to the objection hinted above. Brahms has written three [App. p.803 "four"] PF. trios, of which the latest [App. p.803 "but one"] (op. 87 in C) one of his most recent works, has been highly admired; the second also (for horn or cello, op. 40) is a fine and most individual work, he at least cannot be accused of treating either of the instruments with undue favouritism.

II. In the Minuet the short extent of the piece and the necessity of its constant repetition, besides perhaps an unconscious feeling of formal requirements, gave rise to the custom of writing a second minuet to be played alternately with the first. This was usually of a broader, quieter character, for the sake of contrast, and though it was at first in the same key, in accordance with the custom of the Suite, there is an example in one of Bach's Clavier Suites where the second minuet is in the tonic minor, and in at least two other cases is in the relative minor, both practices which afterwards, under Haydn and Mozart, became established rules. How the second minuet acquired the name of Trio is not quite clear. Bach only calls it so in the few instances in which it is written in three parts—as opposed to the minuet in two—such as that in the third French Suite. This particular case, by the way, is perhaps the earliest instance of the occurrence of the always-misunderstood direction, 'Minuetto Da Capo.' By the time of Haydn the term Trio is firmly established, and even in his earliest works (such as the first quartets) there are two minuets, each with a trio. Haydn also experimented in using keys for the trio a little more remote from the tonic than those already mentioned, even anticipating Beethoven's favourite use of the major key a third below. These innovations become almost necessary in the modern striving for new forms of contrast. Beethoven affords perhaps the only instances (in Symphonies Nos. 4 and 7) of a scherzo and trio twice repeated, but Schumann was fond of writing two trios to his, having adopted the device in three of his symphonies, besides his Pianoforte Quintet and Quartet. Not that he was the first to write a second trio—a plan which has since found many followers; there is at least one instance in Bach (Concerto in F for strings and wind) where the minuet has three trios, and another in Mozart (Divertimento in D for ditto) of two minuets, one with three trios and another with two. Schumann was so given to dividing his pieces up and enclosing the several sections in double bars, that he seems occasionally in the pianoforte works to lose himself in a chain of trios, as for instance, in the 'Blumenstück,' 'Humoreske,' and 'Novelletten.' In his six Intermezzi (op. 4), he adopted the more rational term 'Alternativo' for his subordinate sections, while in the F♯ minor Sonata the middle part of the Scherzo is itself called an Intermezzo, this title signifying its entire want of relationship to the rest of the movement, which is no small part of its charm. A trio, as well as a subordinate section in a rondo, etc., which presents a change from tonic major to minor or the reverse, is sometimes simply headed 'Minore' or 'Maggiore' as the case may be. This is common in Haydn and not infrequent in Beethoven (PF. Sonata in E♭, op. 7; in E major, op. 15, etc). Schumann, Raff, and other modern composers, have also occasionally given this heading. In modern music, though the trio exists, it is often taken as an understood thing and not specially so entitled. (Chopin, Sonata in B minor, Grieg in E minor, etc, and see Beethoven, 9th Symphony.)

Speaking generally we may say that the most obvious key for the trio of a minuet, scherzo, march, etc., written in a major key, is the subdominant, as it stands in place of a third subject, the main movement having appropriated the tonic and dominant keys. But where, as in modern marches, there are more trios than one, and still another key has to be sought, the relationship of the key a third above or below—distant but still real—is turned to account. Military marches and most dances intended to be danced to are written with a separate trio, or trios, so that they can be repeated as often as necessary, but in concert pieces (such as Weber's Invitation à la Valse, the marches by Mendelssohn and others) the sections answering to trio are not often so designated, the piece being written out in extenso.

[ F. C. ]

1. See for example the list of Dussek's works in the article on his name, vol. i. p. 447.
2. See vol. iii. p. 363a.