# Brahms: Piano Trio in A Major



## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

Do you think the posthumous Piano Trio in A Major discovered in 1920’s truly is Brahms? It is closely related to and influenced by the 1st Piano Trio in B, that much I can say.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

I don't know; admittedly I don't know the work very well although I heard it already many years ago as it was a "filler" in the BeauxArts Trio recordings, I think, and it does sound very Brahmsian.

What I find rather incredible is that we seem to be unable to establish the authenticity (or not) of a piece from the 1860s, and maybe by a well known composer. We have thousands of letter from Brahms and his correspondents. It seems hard to believe that we wouldn't know about that trio if Brahms wrote it, even if he disowned it and it remained unpublished. Additionally, we know that Brahms destroyed many sketches, early versions (such as a string quintet version of the piano quintet) and probably dozens of early works (and not only early, a companion trio to op.87 was apparently mostly finished and had been shown to Clara and/or Joachim who liked it but Brahms destroyed it anyway) because of his perfectionism and it seems also hard to believe he would have let a piece slip he was not happy with 

And if somebody else wrote it, an anonymous piece at that time is also puzzling. Sure, we have real forgeries, mostly from the 20th century ("Mozart" violin concerto, "Haydn" piano sonatas, also Schubert, baroque music etc.) but I don't think anyone believes the piece to be a much later forgery. (And a forger could have put Brahms name somewhere.)


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

I can't see it being anyone but Brahms, tbh. Who else would write a very decent piece of music then credit it to someone else? It sounds too Brahmsian to be anyone else's but his so until proved otherwise I'm sticking with Brahmsy-boy.


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## Highwayman (Jul 16, 2018)

2nd movement in particular sounds very Brahmsian but the last movement sounds more like Schumann than Brahms imo. And it generally sounds less "focused" than prime Brahms. I am not sold on Brahms but I think a lesser composer like Dietrich would consider this work as one of his best works and wouldn`t leave it in the dust. _But, _if it was Brahms he would have surely destroyed it as it is clearly below the standard of his published works. This is getting rather confusing. I`ll stop now. 😅


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## RobertJTh (Sep 19, 2021)

I think it's possible that the trio was a product of the circle around Schumann in his last years, with him, Brahms, Dietrich and Joachim embarking on several projects together. Like the F-A-E sonata that was composed by Schumann, Brahms and Dietrich together. Maybe Brahms wrote 1 or more movements and Schumann and/or Dietrich did the rest?
Leaves the question open why the F=E-A sonata was discussed a lot in their correspondence, and there's no trace of the trio in it. But then again, Joachim and Clara kept the Schumann violin concerto hidden for their entire lives, so who knows?


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

But Schumann was dead while they hid the violin concerto, whereas Brahms or Dietrich or other possible authors (unless we suspect Schumann) were alive for decades while the trio was somewhere, anonymous and unpublished. Why would the main alternative candidate, Dietrich, be embarrassed and not publish the piece? It might not have passed muster for hyper-selfcritical Brahms (although the sprawling first version of op.8 did at the time...) but it would have been a pretty good piece for Dietrich, I'd say.
Apparently the hypothesis that it was an early 20th century forgery is not entertained. Maybe the paper/manuscript is enough to exclude this.

It might be easiest to come up with a story that it is in fact early Brahms, copied someone else, that escaped Brahms flamethrower but whoever was in possession was discreet and loyal enough to keep it under lock and key during and after Brahms' lifetime.


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## maestro267 (Jul 25, 2009)

First Trio is in B major, not B flat


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