Music Sound

A clarinet-violin-piano trio is a chamber musical ensemble made up of one clarinet, one violin, and one piano, or the name of a piece written for such a group.

The idea of a clarinet-violin-piano trio is relatively modern. Curiously, the clarinet-viola-piano trio existed several hundred years before the clarinet-violin-piano trio; Mozart composed his famous Kegelstatt Trio in the 18th century, and Romantic composer Max Bruch composed a suite of eight pieces and a double concerto for viola, clarinet, and piano. Many of these works can be (or already have been) transcribed for a clarinet-violin-piano trio. Most compositions for this arrangement were composed in the 20th century, but not all of them are atonal.

Unlike a piano trio or a concerto, there is no standard form for a composition for a clarinet-violin-piano trio; a piece can have any number of movements, at any tempo, in any key.

Acoustically, the choice of a clarinet, violin, and piano is strange. Most chamber music (and most music in general) contains high (soprano), mid-range (alto/tenor), and low (bass/baritone) parts. Both a clarinet and a violin play relatively high-pitched parts, making for a less-balanced sound than a trio that contains all sounds, such as a violin-cello-piano trio.

Composers of Clarinet-Violin-Piano Trios

(This is an incomplete list.)

Béla Bartók
Alban Berg
William Bolcom
Donald Erb
John Harbison
Alan Hovhaness
Charles Ives
Aram Khachaturian
Ernst Krenek
Gian Carlo Menotti
Darius Milhaud
Rick Sowash
Igor Stravinsky
Johann Baptist Vanhal

Current Clarinet-Violin-Piano Trio Groups

(This is an incomplete list.)

The Bellerive Trio
The Verdehr Trio