Pascal

As with many episodes in Franz Schubert’s life, uncertainty surrounds the origins of his two trios for piano, violin and cello. We know that they were played to a Viennese audience, one on 26 December 1827 and the other on 26 March 1828, but not in which order. Although it is more likely that the Trio no. 1 in B flat major op. 99 was performed before the Trio no. 2 in E flat major op. 100, musicologists remain divided on the subject. Documentary sources provide a certain amount of information about the Trio op. 100: the manuscript tells us it was composed in November 1827, while Schubert’s correspondence shows a composer desperate to have his work published, even to the extent of removing a number of development sections and a repeat from the final movement because some publishers found the work too long. The manuscript of the first trio has been lost. By comparing indirect evidence, however, including the different types of manuscript paper Schubert used, we may conjecture that the Trio op. 99 was also composed in the autumn of 1827.