Beethoven - Clarinet Trios

Ludwig Van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)

Clarinet Trios

Trio in B flat Major, Op.11

Trio in E flat Major, Op.38

Trio ECCO (!)

Karl Leister (Clarinet)

Mathias Moosdorf (Cello)

Olga Gollej (Piano)

Recorded 13-15 July 2011, Siemensvilla, Berlin

The young Beethoven composed his Trio Op. 11 for piano, cello and clarinet, this relatively new woodwind instrument becoming rapidly popular in his time. The nickname “Gassenhauer” trio is due to the widely popular tune used in the 3rd movement, used in an opera by Joseph Weigl.

The Clarinet Trio Op. 38 is an arrangement by the composer of his own Septet Op. 20.The Septet was one of Beethoven’s most popular early works, and resulted in a string of arrangements for smaller forces, most of them made by other hands, but the composer himself produced this arrangement for clarinet trio, which happily amplifies the solo instrument’s prominence in the Septet. He never wrote a more joyous melody than the main subject of the first movement, and the work as a whole finds the composer at his most relaxed. While Beethoven’s clarinet writing has never received the attention accorded to Mozart’s, he wrote for it with no less warmth and affection, and this pair of trios displays a winning, sunny side of the composer that is often overshadowed by the cantankerous instrumental dramatist of popular myth and legend.