Trio for violin, cello and piano no. 2 in c major

As with the Largo in F# minor for cello and piano, the Trio n° 2 was composed in the Tunisian port of Bizerte. In 1907, Jean Cras told his wife that he had reworked the fast passage of the first movement: “I can say that the Trio almost in its entirety was conceived in Bizerte, in a few days (in 1904): the entire choral, the finale not onlythe ideas but also the developments, the scherzo  ideas, the slow introduction in 5/4. Asfar as new ideas are concerned, there are only those of the Allegro. As for the Finale, I can say that I had finished it at Bizerte, it would have been just as it is now. Concerning the beginning, apart from the actual introduction, which is old, I can say that the overall conception is new.” Perhaps this reworking is at the origin of its tardy first performance, the 29 April 1911 at the Société nationale de musique, with the violinist Armand Parent (dédicatee of the work) and Ricardo Viñes at the  piano. This Trio is striking by its density, as much in the counterpoint as in the succession of its numerous ideas. The superimposition of the lines enable to flesh out the texture, to develop the material and to facilitate the musical discourse, but whilst avoiding being didactic: the fugal writing at the beginning of the first movement, to the 5/4 has nothing to do with school homework exercises, anymore than that of the Finale. The expressive intensity of the first two movements, occasionally marked by a sense of solemnity (the Choral, which calls to mind Franck), the popular accents which resonate in the scherzo and the Finale constitute two aspects of the same world. The seriousness and the spirit of amusement are balanced without opposing one another, as the motivic unit suggests: the subjects of the first and last movements present some discreet signs of being related.