A Contextual Study of the String Trio in Vienna 1780 - 1820

Abstract

The string trio in Vienna, in the final years of the eighteenth century and first two decades of the nineteenth, remains in various respects under-researched. This neglect includes the string trios of Mozart and Beethoven. This study takes up three factors that have inhibited a balanced understanding of the genre: the near exclusive scholarly focus on the string quartet during this period; the overlooking of lesser-known composers’ and their music; and the presentation of instrumental chamber music as autonomous, cut off from social situations and meanings. I direct attention to string-trio production during this period by situating it in the context of private domestic music-making associated with amateur players. I point out that the various types of string trios, and the composers who wrote them, had certain and significant functions and roles essential to Viennese chamber-music culture: education, entertainment, and sociability. Significant attention is given to the composer and publisher Franz Anton Hoffmeister, who was an important figure in Vienna’s string-trio culture. As a composer, he was responsible for approximately one-third of the string trios written in Vienna during the last two decades of the eighteenth century; and as a publisher, he not only supplied the market with numerous string trios, but he also helped create certain aspects of that market. Marketing strategies for chamber music in general, and string trios in particular, are considered, with attention paid to Hoffmeister’s subscription series, an innovative manner of publishing chamber music at the time. The Viennese publishing catalogues reveal a heavy presence of string trios by Hoffmeister, Peter Hänsel, Ignaz Pleyel, and Franz Alexander Pössinger. Changes in string trio production and function after the turn of the nineteenth century are considered.