Beethoven's Unfinished Piano Trio in F Minor from 1816: A Study of Its Genesis and Significance

Abstract

During 1816, Beethoven worked on a Piano Trio in F minor, which he offered to British publisher Robert Birchall on October 1 of that year. This unfinished work has received almost no previous scholarly attention, yet the manuscript sources for the F minor Trio are extensive and revealing. Study of the Scheide Sketchbook at Princeton, New Jersey, and the draft for the first movement of the trio in the Staatsbibliothek preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, MS Grasnick 29, shows the originality of Beethoven's plans for the trio. The draft for the movement is transcribed and is shown to be intimately related to entries in the Scheide Sketchbook, a circumstance supporting the proposal of a new chronology for Beethoven's use of the book. In its style and structure, the F minor Trio bears comparison with several of Beethoven's earlier works in this key, such as the “Appassionata” Sonata and the F minor Quartet, Op. 95. At the same time, the unfinished trio displays affinities with some of his later pieces, such as the “Hammerklavier” Sonata, Op. 106, and it helps fill out the picture of Beethoven's artistic development during this pivotal yet relatively unproductive phase of his career. Among the tasks that occupied Beethoven when he set the trio aside were a pair of symphonies to be written for the London Philharmonic Society. Although the symphonies for London were never finished, these plans exerted an impact on Beethoven's creative activity. Examination of the sketch sources from this time not only clarifies the nature of the unfinished trio, but allows for a fresh glimpse at the early genesis of what became the Ninth Symphony. [Supplementary materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Journal of Musicological Research for the following free supplemental resource: an audio recording of the unfinished first movement of Beethoven's Piano Trio in F minor, as transcribed and edited by William Kinderman. Performed by: William Kinderman, piano; Christina Lixandru, violin; Diana Flesner, cello.] 1 I am grateful to Dr. Helmut Hell, Director of the Music Division at the Staatsbibliothek preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, for allowing me access to the Grasnick 29 manuscript and other sources, and to Paul Needham, Librarian of the Scheide Collection at Princeton University, who kindly permitted me to examine the Scheide Sketchbook. Musical examples from these sources were typeset by Bradley Decker. Research for this study was supported by the Research Board of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. A version of this article was read at the annual national meeting of the American Musicological Society, Houston, November 2003. This article is dedicated to my students at the University of Illinois, especially to the participants in the graduate seminar on Beethoven held during the autumn of 2001, which included a preliminary investigation of the unfinished Piano Trio in F minor.