Our program tonight opens with the second of five great piano trios Mozart produced between 1786 and 1788 (K496 in G major; “our” K502 in B-flat major; K542 in E-flat major; K548 in C major; and K564 in G major). A decade earlier, he had produced another B-flat work, in Divertimento form, for the same instruments, and had also written the Kegelstatt Trio, K498—also of 1786—in which clarinet and viola replace the more traditional violin and cello as the piano’s partners. The 1786 works followed the opera Le nozze di Figaro and preceded the Prague symphony. Although their piano parts would have challenged many an amateur pianist, the published Franz Anton Hoffmeister accepted them readily, as the piano trio medium was enjoying great popularity in the realm of domestic music-making. Like Mozart’s two piano quartets (in G minor, K478, and E-flat major, K493), the trios wring a surprising number of different textures from their limited number of instruments. Because of the demanding writing for the piano, comparisons are often drawn with the solo parts in the seventeen superlative piano concerti Mozart composed, largely for his own use, during his ten years in Vienna, 1781-91.

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Beethoven’s Theme and Variations Op. 44 was initially published early in 1804 by the Leipzig firm of Hoffmeister & Kühnel. According to Gustav Nottebohm, the first musicologist to examine systematically the numerous surviving Beethoven sketches and exercises, preliminary work on what was to become Op. 44 may have taken place as early as 1792, while Beethoven was still in his native Bonn, as the song Feuerfarb was being drafted. Alexander Wheelock Thayer, whose Beethoven biography still ranks among the most important, relayed Otto Jahn’s claim that later sketches for the Op. 44 Variations, dating from the last years of the century, were to be found in the sketchbook now known as Grasnick 1, in the proximity of work on the string quartet Op. 18, No. 3 and the variation movement of the Op. 20 Septet. Already by Nottebohm’s time (ca. 1870), however, several pages had been removed from the sketchbook. As subsequent detection, based largely on watermarks, has recovered only some of the missing sheets, it is not possible to prove Jahn’s assertions. The late-nineteenth-century musicologist Hugo Riemann placed composition of Op. 44 at the very beginning of the 1800s, arguing that the melodic and harmonic shape of the theme resembles the finale of the Creatures of Prometheus ballet (premiered in March 1801), later used as the basis for the variations that form the last movement of the Eroica symphony. The long gestations period these various sketches imply underlines the labor it cost Beethoven to refine and polish his raw motivic material. The finished Variations are successively witty, pathetic, humorously self-important, and brilliant, making them worthy predecessors, despite their small scale to the much better known Kakadu Variations for piano trio completed in 1816.

In his 1838 Biographische Notizen über Ludwig van Beethoven, Ferdinand Ries, who studied with the composer for several years during his late teens and remained in contact with Beethoven well into the 1820s, related an incident of 1800 which sheds interesting light on Beethoven’s use of simple, largely triadic themes like those of Op. 44 and the Eroica finale:

When [the virtuoso pianist Daniel] Steibelt came to Vienna with his great name, some of Beethoven's friends grew alarmed lest he do injury to the latter's reputation.  Steibelt did not visit him; they met for the first time one evening at the house of Count [Moritz von] Fries [eventual dedicatee of the Op. 23 and 24 violin sonatas, the Op. 29 string quintet, and the Seventh Symphony], where Beethoven produced his new Trio in B-flat Major for Pianoforte, Clarinet, and Violoncello (Op. 11) for the first time.  There is no opportunity for particular display on the part of the pianist in this work.  Steibelt listened to it with a sort of condescension, uttered a few compliments to Beethoven, and felt sure of his victory. He played a quintet of his own composition, improvised, and made a good effect with his tremolandos, which were at that time something entirely new.  After this, Beethoven could not be induced to play again. Eight days later there was again a concert at the Count's; Steibelt again played a quintet which enjoyed a good deal of success.  He also played an improvisation (which had obviously been carefully prepared), choosing the same theme on which Beethoven had written the variations in his trio [Pria ch'io l'impegno (“Before beginning this awesome task, I need a snack“) from Joseph Weigl's popular comic opera L'Amor Marinaro.]  This incensed Beethoven's admirers and the master himself, who had to go to the piano to improvise in his turn. He went in his usual, I might say ill-bred, manner to the instrument as if half pushed, picked up the ‘cello part of Steibelt's quintet as he passed the 'cellist's stand, placed it (intentionally?) upside down on the music desk, and with one finger drummed a theme out of the first few measures.  Insulted and angered, he improvised in such a manner that Steibelt left the room before he finished, would never again meet him, and, indeed, before accepting an offer to attend a soirée, made it a condition that Beethoven should not be invited.

Although we may question whether the Op. 11 trio, which was advertised as published as early as 3 October 1798, was in fact premiered only in 1800, the anecdote nevertheless has much to recommend it, particularly in drawing attention to the bass-line-like structure of both themes, and the elaborate structures Beethoven was able to construct atop them. 

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Beethoven chose the medium of the piano trio for the first works he published in Vienna, but emphasized the seriousness of his three Op. 1 compositions by casting each in four, rather than the hitherto usual three, movements. When the works were reprinted thirty-four years after their initial release, the influential music journal the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung reflected on their importance:

When a new and well-done edition of universally known, esteemed, and beloved works appears, nothing really needs to be said except "Here they are." Nonetheless, if superfluity be allowed, a few further comments might be in order.  We may rejoice that a new edition of these works had in fact become necessary despite the appearance of so many earlier editions. And necessary it was. Proof that its experienced publisher knew what he was doing in reprinting these works may be found in two examples of earlier prints in the possession of this writer. The plates used in preparing these earlier editions had become so worn through repeated use that they hardly imparted the most essential information, leaving one to rely half on guesswork for many details. How often and in what tremendous numbers must enthusiasts have found beauty, joy and delight in these trios in the thirty-odd years since they first saw the light of day!  And indeed, who has not needed such an infusion of pleasure from time to time during that period? We view this new edition, and the opportunity to play the works contained therein, with real approbation, since the trios have not been republished for some time. The pieces themselves give great enjoyment (it goes almost without saying) because of their content and worth in general; but also, and more particularly, because in these works, as in few others, the happy youth of the master—as yet untroubled, easy-going, and carefree—is mirrored.  From time to time, however, the deep seriousness and delicate intimacy of their composer's later years already make themselves known in a most affecting fashion.  Notwithstanding the fact that one must recognize the models offered by Mozart's piano quartets, Beethoven’s peculiarity and independence shine unmistakably through his trios, scattering flares of electrifying sparks.  May many share with us these last-named joys!

—Kenneth Slowik