Piano Trio OP10 by Jongen

 Joseph Jongen is a Belgian composer who has been active from the last years in the 19th century to the first half of the last century. One of so called the Franckist school. He has started the career of musician, a pianist/organist and a composer, very early in his life. He seems to have regained fame in this century.

This piano trio, possibly composed in his young days, has flourishing melodies. Inclined to melancholy. As a Franckist composer, he takes the form of cyclic technique. Later, he has become a teacher in harmony and counterpoint at his mother school, Royal Conservatoir of Liege. Counterpoint is not conspicuous in this work. I believe his young talent has composed this piece as it wanted to. Monopoly of melodies and the contrast between strings and piano are remarkable. It is not a defect at all but tells us how he composed it in youth.

Several other composers' first works have been with the style of piano trio. Beethoven's 1st opus is composed of 3 works in this genre. Jongen's teacher, Franck, also started his composer career with OP1 piano trio in f minor. Chopin's only piano trio is given OP8 which tells he has composed it in his young days as a composer. I don't know why but they have started composing chamber music in this genre. Practically, piano trio with only 3 performers must be easy for them to access to. I don't know what musicological motivation they have had for this genre. 

As an amateur cellist, piano trio is a kind of hard genre. It requires cellist proficiency with his/her instrument comparable to piano and violin. Simply, audio dynamic cello is always behind the other two instruments. But piano trio has been a fun for me to challenge with. Like Nr1 piano trio by Mendelssohn, Nr1, 2 and 3 by Brahms, Faure OP120 or the famous Archduke by Beethoven etc. I have enjoyed playing them in my cellist career even if not always very successful. 

One more thing. Very personal. When listening to this piece with this recording at bed room, the violin sounds far from me. I was a bit sad to realize my auditory ability had been worsened for the high range of audio. It has been real in fact. But, listening to it with a better audio set with a 3 way KEF speaker, it sounds much better with the higher portion of audio. This KEF has only a coaxial tweeter but sounds better than a bookshelf speaker set by Onkyo. I am inclined to set a better set with bigger speaker at bed room. It won't be too long before I could not appreciate good music. A better speaker may deserve it.