Download Monatsschrift fur Dramatik, Theater, Musik²

Clara with her eldest daughter, Marie, shortly before the Trio was composed.
The Only Chamber Work: Piano Trio, Op. 17
Clara began composing the trio in May of 1846. Her fourth child, Emil, had been
born in February and died the next year. During a summer vacation on the island
of Norderney, Clara suffered a miscarriage. In addition, Robert had experienced
another mental breakdown in May and spent much of 1846 recovering.
Clara rehearsed her trio for the first time on October 2, 1846. She reflected on the
piece in her diary: “There is nothing greater than the joy of composing something
oneself, and then listening to it. There are some pretty passages in the trio, and I
think it is fairly successful as far as form goes.” The work was published by
Breitkopf and Härtel in 1847, along with Robert’s first piano trio. The
impressiveness of Robert’s trio caused Clara to lose confidence in her own piece.
She wrote in her diary that the trio “seems more harmless each time I play it.”¹
The trio was not performed very frequently during Clara’s lifetime, but when it
was performed, reviews were favorable.
“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.”
-1847 review in music journal Neue Berliner Musikzeitung
“The concert closed with a Trio by Frau Clara Schumann, which received
exceptional applause. The composition had something melancholy about it and
had a few brighter moments only now and then, which were all the more effective
since the entire work seems to be veiled.”
- 1847 review in music journal Monatsschrift fur Dramatik, Theater, Musik²
The title page for the first edition, published in 1847.
The trio is written in the traditional four movement form: Allegro moderato;
Scherzo, Tempo di Minuetto; Andante; Allegretto. The fourth movement features
a fugue in the development section, inspired by Clara and Robert’s dedicated
study of counterpoint. A dotted eighth/sixteenth figure, which can be traced
throughout the work, first appears in theme I of the first movement. It is reversed
to sixteenth/dotted eighth in the second movement, appears in the Andante’s
sweeping melody, and in both themes of the Allegretto.
¹ Litzmann, Berthold. Clara Schumann: An Artist’s Life, Based on Materials Found in Diaries and Letters. Translated by Grace E. Hadow. Volume I. (New York: Da Capo
Press, 1979), 410.
² Reich, Nancy. Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman. Revised Edition. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001), 312.