Beethoven: String Trio Op.3. Serenade Op.8

In these two string trios may be heard the voice of the young Beethoven at it's most personal and polished. They were composed just before and just after his critical move from Bonn to Vienna, where he proceeded to establish himself in the wake of Haydn and Mozart. Both composers cast their own contrarian shadows over Beethoven's trios. Beethoven adopted both the form and tonality of Mozart's sublime E flat Trio-Divertimento for his first essay in the genre, and yet otherwise went out of his way to distance his own work from it's apparent exemplar. The accentuation of weak beats in the first Minuet is typical of Beethoven's headstrong manner, even if the second is more Mozartian. Elsewhere the young man reveals himself quite capable of inhabiting an idiom of Viennese grace and courtly charm, but equally likely to subvert and rebel against it. From a couple of years later, the Serenade also opens in bold and striking fashion, with a Spanish-accented march, but the peaceful Andante and solemn, French-style Adagio follow older models deriving from Baroque-era trio sonatas. Most unusual - at least in 1795 - is the fifth-movement Polonaise, linking the very different languages of Rameau and Chopin. The Serenade concludes with an expansive variation movement where Beethoven does at last acknowledge some debt to Mozart - yet the overall impression left by both works is of a skilled craftsmanship that owes most to the teaching he received from Haydn and Salieri. Comprising Alessandro Milani (violin), Luca Ranieri (viola) and Pierpaolo Toso (cello), this trio was founded in 2004, reviving the name of the classic ensemble led by Franco Gulli, with Bruno Giuranna and Giacinto Caramia, who performed and recorded the landmark works of the string trio repertoire in the 60s and 70s.