Piano Trio no. 2, op. 100 - Sonata for Violin and Piano no. 2

E. Istomin, I. Stern, L. Rose, D. Barenboim
Franz SchubertSony 2000


When a great artist discovers a beautiful melody, sooner or later he repeats it and that melody becomes like a refrain that, repeated over and over again, determines the main memory of a particular piece.
Schubert's Trio, op. 100 proposes ideally the journey of a man (as it were the journey of every man) who appears on the scene of the world, a young man bouncing with positive drive: from the start the music presents him bursting with energy and determination to get on in life. Then it is as if, as time passes and circumstances change, problems, uncertainties and sufferings begin to surface. (...)
Thus the way this ideal story comes to its close is moving: for in the final section it is as if the desire for fulfilment and human weakness are continually clashing with each other, eventually exhausting all their energies. (...)
But in the last bars something extraordinary and unforeseeable happens, wich makes the theme transform and free itself into a definitively positive reply: That mysterious fact makes man's journey towards his fulfilment eternally possible.

(Excerpt from the introduction by Luigi Giussani to the booklet enclosed in the CD)