TRIO IN D MAJOR, OPUS 70, NO. 1 "GHOST"
   LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN   1770-1827

Previous performances on this series:

  • Alma Trio 1970     Allegro vivace e con brio
  • Francesco Trio 1980     Largo assai ed espressivo
  • Trio Concertante 1987     Presto
  • Amadeus Trio 1997
  • Peabody Trio 2006

Even for Beethoven, 1808 (exactly 2 centuries ago) was an extraordinary year.his Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, Choral Fantasy, his Opus 69 Cello Sonata, and the two Opus 70 trios. His deafness was almost complete. His longtime friends and colleague Ludwig Spohr attended a rehearsal of the new trios and reported:

It was not an enjoyable experience. To begin with, the piano was terribly out of tune which troubled Beethoven not at all, since he could not hear it. Furthermore little or nothing remained of the brilliant technique which used to be so admired.

In loud passages the poor deaf man hammered away at the notes, smudging whole groups of them, and one lost all sense of the melody unless one could follow the score. I felt deeply moved by the tragedy of it all. Beethoven's almost continuous melancholy was no longer a riddle to me.

When he wrote these trios, Beethoven was living as a guest in the home of Countess Erdody, a wealthy patron to whom he dedicated them. Then the irascible composer quarreled with her, moved out in a huff, wrote his publisher to change the dedication, and finally relented, rededicating them to the Countess with this entreaty:
I have acted wrongly, it is true. Forgive me. I am sorry that I behaved as I did.

Do write just one word to say that you are fond of me again. If you don't do this, I shall suffer infinite pain.

Ironically, what had enraged Beethoven was his discovery that she was bribing his servant not to quit his difficult employer, supporting the cynical aphorism, .No good deed goes unpunished..

Changes in the grand piano – greater volume, sustaining power, and increase in dynamic range and overtones.are reflected in Beethoven's scoring in all three movements. The slow movement is most striking. After the cello and violin lead off, the piano introduces a motif in the lower register with an eerie effect – "a soulless cry" – slowly and softly complementing the strings with an assortment of scales, tremolos, silences, and overtones, with remarkable use of the sustaining pedal. His friends revealed that the nearly deaf composer resorted to an assortment of hearing devices to transmit impulses from his piano's sounding board to his failing ear.

Craig B. Leman