Brahms Piano Trios for Violin, Cello, and Piano Henle Urtext HN245

Piano trios belong among the great genres of Classical chamber music, and Brahms, too, turned his attention to this genre early on. He wrote his opus 8 in fall and winter 1853/54, thus at the age of 20. The two other piano trios were created 28 years later, namely op. 87 in C major, and 32 years later, op. 101 in c minor. Brahms was working on another Trio, in E flat major, at the same time that he was working on the C major Trio; however, it seems to have been destroyed. He returned to his first piano trio in 1889 and revised it so thoroughly that he wrote to Clara Schumann: “I have re-written my B major trio.” The Henle Urtext edition reproduces the second version of the Trio op. 8 (published in 1891) first, then follows this up with a reprint of the first version in its Appendix.