RENCONTRES INÉDITES IV

Haydn’s Trio No. 39 is original in more ways than one: in addition to the popular influences that have earned it the subtitle “Gypsy”, it frees itself from traditional sonata form to develop a spring-like cantilena, in which the strings are grafted one after the other onto a refined piano line.

Rare pieces dating from the composer’s youth and marked by the influence of Mozart, Beethoven’s Piano Quartets give the keyboard the role of both rhythmic engine and lyrical singer. The mood of the Third Quartet in C major is light and spring-like, moving between cheerful bonhomie and meditative tranquillity. It contains a number of motifs and melodies that the composer would later exploit in other works, such as the Piano Sonatas.

Another forgotten masterpiece, Saint-Saëns’s Quartet for piano and strings in B flat major, Op. 41, has the same invigorating, playful air, perhaps due to the fact that it was composed in the year of the composer’s marriage and the birth of his son. Alternating lyrical string unisons with more tempestuous sections, the work ends with a brilliant Finale recapitulating several motifs from the different movements.