Piano Trios

Piano trios belong among the great genres of Classical chamber music, and Brahms, too, turned his attention to this genre early on. He wrote his opus 8 in fall and winter 1853/54, thus at the age of 20. The two other piano trios were created 28 years later, namely op. 87 in C major, and 32 years later, op. 101 in c minor. Brahms was working on another Trio, in E flat major, at the same time that he was working on the C major Trio; however, it seems to have been destroyed. He returned to his first piano trio in 1889 and revised it so thoroughly that he wrote to Clara Schumann: “I have re-written my B major trio.” The Henle Urtext edition reproduces the second version of the Trio op. 8 (published in 1891) first, then follows this up with a reprint of the first version in its Appendix.

• Trio (final version) B major op. 8

• Trio C major op. 87

• Trio c minor op. 101

• Appendix: Trio (early version) B major op. 8