Beethoven: String Trio in E-Flat Major, Op. 3 & Serenade for String Trio in D Major, Op. 8

Featuring

Shirly Laub
Tony Nys
Karel Steylaerts
TrioFenix
Ludwig van Beethoven

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Composition History

Beethoven composed five string trios between 1794 and 1798, but despite their high quality, he never returned to the genre later in his career.

Compositional Technique

Beethoven's Op. 3 String Trio has six movements, a structure possibly inspired by Mozart's Divertimento for string trio in E flat K. 563, where the Adagio is also flanked by two minuets.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Beethoven ventured into the string trio genre before the string quartet, partly to delay grappling with the string quartet due to Haydn's impressive legacy.

Critical Reception

Both Beethoven's String Trio Op. 3 and Serenade Op. 8 are sometimes dismissed as mere study pieces, but high-quality performances reveal them as original and mature works.

Composition History

Beethoven's String Trio in E flat major, Op. 3, was written in the second half of 1795, around the same time he was working on his first piano trios and sonatas.

Composer Biography

Ludwig Van Beethoven, at age 20, left his hometown of Bonn in November 1792 to study with Joseph Haydn in Vienna.

Performer Biography

TrioFenix, consisting of Shirly Laub (violin), Tony Nys (viola), and Karel Steylaerts (cello), was founded in 2006 to perform seldom-played string trio repertoire.