Clara Schumann - Piano Trio in G-minor

Clara Schumann (1819-1896) - Piano Trio in g-minor, op.17 (1846)
Montage over-the-year performance photos for 3 performers: Vincent (Violin), Mark (Piano), and Sally (Cello).
Event: Grand rendez-vous musical de l’OSG 2024.
0:32 - 1. Allegro moderato
9:10 - 3. Andante
Composed in 1846, the Piano Trio in G minor, opus 17 by Clara Schumann is considered her greatest, most mature four-movement work. It is her only piano trio, composed while she lived in Dresden, following extensive studies in fugue writing and the publication of her Three Preludes and Fugues For Piano, opus 16 in 1845. The trio was premiered by the composer in Vienna on January 15th, 1847
Schumann began composing her trio at age twenty-five while living in Dresden in 1846. She found great joy in composing the chamber work; her second four-movement work after the Piano Sonata which is also in the same key of G minor. At the first rehearsal of the trio with a violinist and cellist, she wrote in her diary, "There is nothing greater than the joy of composing something oneself, and then listening to it."
The winter of 1847, she toured to Vienna, for the second time in her career, where she gave the trio’s premiere. Though many of her husband's works were not received well by the Viennese audiences, Schumann's trio was reviewed favorably: "The work is clear, something rarely seen; it demonstrates a calm mastery of the formal artistic medium that we would not have expected of a woman composer."
Schumann planned to dedicate it to her friend, the composer, Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel, but Hensel died before the work's publication, so Schumann ascribed no dedication. The work was published in Leipzig in 1847 by Breitkopf and Hartel. This was her first work for instruments other than the voice and piano since her Piano Concerto in A minor of 1835.
A year after the composition of her piano trio, her husband Robert composed his first piano trio, op.63 which was greatly influenced by Clara's trio as they share many interesting similarities. Their works have been frequently paired at concerts as well as on recordings.
During the work’s composition, Schumann was living in Dresden due to her husband Robert Schumann's ill health. Three months before she began composing it in May of 1846, she gave birth to her fourth child, less than a year after her third child. During the summer of 1846, she traveled to Norderney in more attempts to improve her husband's health conditions. While in Norderney, Clara suffered a miscarriage before returning home to complete the work in September.
This work consists of four movements, but only the first and third is played in this video.
Movement 1
The overall key of this movement is G Minor, with a lot of modulation both to closer and more distant keys. The structure of the movement is Sonata form (made up of the Exposition, Development, and Recapitulation), with a Codetta and then a Coda. It is in Allegro moderato. It relies on energy and chromaticism to attract the audience. Throughout the movement, each instrument has its own soloist moment on top of an exceptional balance between three instruments. This balance makes it clear that Clara had a great understanding of writing for these three instruments although she was a pianist.
Movement 3
The 3rd movement, Andante, is in G major and begins with an 8 measures piano solo. Soon after, the violin takes over the theme. In the middle of movement all three parts play dotted rhythms, which contribute to the contrast of the emotion of the piece. The piece could be described as "bittersweet".
P.S. That sound you hear in the background was the wind shaking the tent, there was a tornado watch while we were playing :P