Theatre & Performing Arts
Piano Trios: Beethoven, Smetana, and Dvořák Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center October 27, 2026
The piano trio has long offered composers a direct and personal means of expression, and this program brings together three works that reveal the form from different perspectives. Beethoven’s Piano Trio in E-flat major, Op. 1, No. 1, shows a young composer already expanding the scope of the piano trio, giving each instrument a distinct role and shaping music that moves beyond convention. Czech composer Bedřich Smetana wrote his G-minor Piano Trio during a period of profound personal loss, and its shifting moods give the work a deeply human intensity.
Fellow Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s “Dumky” Trio closes the program. The work stands apart in the chamber music repertoire as both his farewell to his homeland before departing for America and a composition of entirely unique design. The title refers to the dumka, a Slavic folk form marked by sudden contrasts between melancholy reflection and exuberant energy. Dvořák unfolds the work as a sequence of these contrasting episodes, giving the music a sense of freedom and immediacy that brings the program to a compelling close.
