Editorial Reviews

Despite the "piano trios" element in the title and the repeated mentions of a piano in the booklet notes (in German, English, and French), these trios neither were written for nor are performed on a piano. Some of them are of questionable authenticity, but all date from the earliest years of Haydn's career, probably in the late 1750s, and are quite properly played on a harpsichord along with a period violin and, curiously, a modern cello. The mixture is reasonable enough, for the music is also a mixed bag. Most of the pieces aren't even true keyboard trios but Baroque trio sonatas in a process of formal breakdown. Haydn several times opens a fast movement with a keyboard solo but then breaks off and notates the keyboard part incompletely, in the manner of a Baroque continuo. Elsewhere the right hand of the piano enters into the trio-sonata texture. This poses problems of balance that are only incompletely solved by the performers of the Trio 1790, although they are sympathetic Haydn players who capture the melodically overflowing qualities of many of these trios and the striving toward greater unity and seriousness in the Trio in G minor (CD 2, tracks 4-6). The sound is not particularly clear, and among the half-baked aspects of the documentation is the total mess made of the track numbering in the track list. However, serious Haydn fans will find these works useful in tracing the process by which his mature voice was formed. James Manheim, All Music Guide

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