Frédéric Chopin
Piano Trio in g minor op. 8
Frédéric Chopin composed his piano trio when he was an 18-year-old student. About the performance of the trio on 31 August 1830 he wrote: “On Sunday we rehearsed the trio. Perhaps because I haven’t heard it for a while, I was very happy with myself (fortunate man!).”
Incidentally, Robert Schumann also shared this opinion, writing in a review: “Is it not as noble as possible, more full of enthusiasm than any song ever written by a poet, original in the smallest detail as in the whole, every note music and life?” We agree with this verdict and recommend this trio in our new Urtext edition to all lovers of highly romantic chamber music.
About the Composer
Frédéric Chopin
Pianist and composer. His work is concentrated around piano music that enjoys extraordinary popularity and has become an integral part of the concert repertoire. His music influenced subsequent generations in France (Franck, Saint-Saëns, Fauré, Debussy) as well as Smetana, Dvořák, Balakirev, Grieg, Albéniz.
| 1810 | Born in Żelazowa Wola near Warsaw on March 1. First compositions at age seven, his first public performance at eight. |
| 1822 | Private instruction in composition. |
| 1825 | Rondo in C minor, Op. 1, his first published work. |
| 1826–29 | Studies at the Institute of Music in Warsaw. |
| 1829 | “Fantaisie sur des airs nationaux polonaise” in A major, Op. 13; Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 8. Travels to Vienna, where he gives two concerts of his compositions and improvisations. |
| 1829–33 and 1835–37 | Etudes, Opp. 10 and 25 -- a new type of virtuosic etude that also makes aesthetic demands. |
| 1830 | Premieres in Warsaw of his two piano concerti, Op. 21 in F minor and Op. 11 in E minor. |
| 1831 | Unable to return to Warsaw due to the Polish uprising, he goes to Paris, where he will remain until the end of his life. |
| 1832 | Debut concert in Paris to great acclaim. |
| 1835/38 | “Trois valses brillantes,” Op. 34. |
| 1836/39 | “24 Preludes,” Op. 28, in a cyclic succession: compactly-designed short pieces. |
| 1835/39 | Piano Sonata in B-flat minor, Op. 35, with the funeral march. |
| 1842/43 | Ballade No. 4 in F minor, Op. 52; “Grande Polonaise brillante” in A-flat major, Op. 53; Scherzo No. 4 in E major, Op. 54. |
| 1844 | Piano Sonata in B minor, Op. 58 |
| 1849 | Completion of the mazurkas in G minor and F minor. Death in Paris on October 17. |
About the Authors
Ernst Herttrich (Editor)
Dr. Ernst Herttrich, born in 1942 in Würzburg, read musicology, history, German and theology at the universities in Würzburg and Cologne. In 1970 he earned his doctorate in Würzburg with a study of the expression of melancholy in the music of Mozart.
From 1970 to 1990 he was an editor at G. Henle Publishers in Munich, after which he was Head of the Beethoven Complete Edition for over 15 years. In 1999 he took over as Head of the Beethoven-Haus Publishers, and from 2001 was made Head of the Beethoven-Archiv, the research centre at the Beethoven-Haus.
He has been a visiting professor at Meiji Gakuin University in Tokyo and has undertaken several lecture tours both there and to Kyoto. His research interests include source studies, editorial techniques and music history. Herttrich’s publications include “Beethoven. Liederkreis an die ferne Geliebte” (Bonn 1999) and “Ludwig van Beethoven. Biographie in Bildern” (Bonn, 2000). Herttrich has edited over 100 Urtext editions for G. Henle Publishers.
Andreas Groethuysen (Fingering)
Prof. Andreas Groethuysen, born in 1956 in Munich, studied music with Ludwig Hoffmann in Munich and, on a scholarship from the “Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes”, with Peter Feuchtwanger in London.
After several years as a soloist, Groethuysen formed a piano duo with Yaara Tal, which has now become the focus of his artistic work. The duo regularly performs in many European countries, in Israel, China, North and South America. In exclusive cooperation with SONY CLASSICAL the internationally acclaimed piano duo has released a great many CDs – 28 to date – almost all of which have been awarded prizes.
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