Midori / Antoine Lederlin / Jonathan Biss

In 1795, at the age of 25, Beethoven officially featured as a composer on a Viennese stage for the very first time. His Opus 1 consists of three piano trios, the third of which is still especially popular to this day. Youthful passion and compositional surprises make it a masterpiece of Viennese Classicism that still breathes the spirit of Haydn and Mozart, but that can also already be recognised as classic Beethoven.

When he sat at the piano for the premiere of the Archduke Trio two decades later, Beethoven could not have known that it would be his final public performance as a pianist. His advancing deafness had been causing him problems for years, and it ultimately became impossible to give further concerts. Yet his new composition went down well: with its poetic and vocal character, the work also impressed critics and is still regarded as a milestone in the piano trio canon.