Beethoven: Piano Trio No. 3; Symphony No. 2 (Arr. for Piano Trio)

Haydn’s misgivings about Beethoven’s third piano trio were not entirely unfounded: symphonic in conception, it was a breakthrough work—Beethoven’s first masterpiece and eventually one of his most popular chamber pieces—and retains its power to amaze to this day.

His Symphony No. 2 also broke through Classical conventions, a scherzo replacing the customary minuet. In the composer’s own arrangement for piano trio it loses none of its impact. The youthful Allegretto in E flat is, in effect, a minuet without the expected trio section.