Beethoven’s Piano Trios Op. 1 were first performed in 1793 at one of the chamber music soirées held at the home of Prince Karl Lichnowsky...

Beethoven’s Piano Trios Op. 1 were first performed in 1793 at one of the chamber music soirées held at the home of Prince Karl Lichnowsky – the dedicatee of the whole set – and in the presence of Beethoven’s teacher, Joseph Haydn. The influence of Haydn is clearly apparent in both works, with Beethoven enhancing his teacher’s trademark rhythmic drive with an energetic drama that was to become one of the most distinctive characteristics of Beethoven’s later chamber music. The Rautio Piano Trio returns to Resonus with this first volume of the complete cycle of Beethoven’s Piano Trios, recorded on period instruments. This is the culmination of the Trio’s wider project charting the evolution of the piano trio from its emergence in the mid-eighteenth century, with the music of J.C. Bach, C.P.E. Bach, Mozart and Haydn, through to Beethoven’s complex and mature realization of the genre.