Piano Trio, Opus 63, Second Movement

Piano Trio in E-flat, Opus 63. This piano trio is an arrangement of the String Quintet op. 4 of 1795, which is itself a recomposition of the Octet for Winds op. 103, written in 1792 and revised in 1793. This piano trio, along with the Cello Sonata op. 64 (an arrangement of the String Trio op. 3), has long been considered to be inauthentic. However, a question has been raised by the discovery of what appear to be sketches for the cello sonata op. 64, which was published by Artaria shortly after he published this Trio, op. 63, in 1806. If the Cello Sonata is actually Beethoven's work (or at least he was involved), then perhaps this Piano Trio was arranged under the same circumstances? The transcription is quite faithful to the Quintet op. 4. Possibly Carl Czerny or someone else in Beethoven's circle arranged this Trio. In any event, the piano trio arrangement works well; the differing tonal colors of the instruments makes the piano trio version quite a different listening experience. With the recording of op. 64, this Trio is left, we believe, as the sole Beethoven composition assigned an opus number which has never been recorded. For details on the Cello Sonata op. 64, see Seldom-Heard Recordings.

Opus: 63

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