Mendelssohn: Piano Trio No. 1, Op. 49, III – Scherzo

I said last week that there is no right place to start when getting to know Classical music, or – more accurately – no wrong place to start. Perhaps you listened to the Haydn Trumpet Concerto that began this series. Maybe you even took the initiative to listen to all three movements. It doesn’t matter. The main thing is to listen, whether you are just beginning or have decades of experience.

Even though there is no wrong place to start, I believe there are some wrong ways to start. Multitasking ranks near the top of my list. We are constantly bombarded by music that has no real purpose other than to mollify us. Music is piped into virtually every public space. We have naturally trained our ears to tune it out. And when we actively seek out music, it’s most often as an accompaniment to something else: driving, studying, eating, jogging.

Now I’m not suggesting that you turn the music off in the car. I’m merely suggesting that you find opportunities for quality listening time that are devoted entirely to listening.

When you go into a movie theater, you expect to focus your attention on the screen. Light in the room that might distract from the light on the screen is taken away. Most people, unfortunately not all, stop talking. All of this promotes your enjoyment of the experience. Music deserves the same level of attention.

My choices of music in this series will not be based on some master pedagogical plan, and I don’t intend to provide a lot of detailed background. It’s very easy to find as much background as you want with a simple Google search. And, of course, you can find lots of context in the courses on this site. This series is really just about experiencing some good music, performed well and recorded well. There are some very interesting and surprising things coming up.

So very briefly, Mendelssohn was born in 1809, the year Haydn died. He excelled at chamber music, music for small ensembles like this one. A scherzo is generally a fast and light-hearted movement, the term meaning joke or jest, and typically appears as a middle movement.