The present release contains some of the least familiar works that Beethoven published and assigned an opus number. Two of them are not conventional piano trios, but works for clarinet, cello, and piano. No one would put these works forth as top-drawer Beethoven, but the central piece, the Variations on "Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu" for piano trio, Op. 121a, deserves to be more frequently played. Although based on an early Beethoven set of variations, it was apparently revised at least once before its publication in 1824, ...
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The present release contains some of the least familiar works that Beethoven published and assigned an opus number. Two of them are not conventional piano trios, but works for clarinet, cello, and piano. No one would put these works forth as top-drawer Beethoven, but the central piece, the Variations on "Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu" for piano trio, Op. 121a, deserves to be more frequently played. Although based on an early Beethoven set of variations, it was apparently revised at least once before its publication in 1824, and in some respects it is a true unknown example of late Beethoven. He seems to have tacked on material at both the beginning and end, turning a conventional set of variations into something different: a reflection on the uses of simplicity, which was a hallmark of his last years. The variations get a massive slow introduction that would have been unheard-of in the 1790s, and the piece concludes with a complex fugue (again typical of his late style). The break between the...
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