In his youth, Johannes Brahms would play the French horn, hence his sentiment for the instrument. Few can blend its sound with the violin and the piano so perfectly. This may be why there were not many more chamber pieces featuring the horn other than the Trio in E flat major composed in the Romantic period. The work contains both traditional hunting references (after all, one of French horn’s German names is “Waldhorn”, literally “forest horn”) and the extensively flowing melody of the 1st movement – one of the most beautiful and most sophisticated melodies of 19th-century chamber music. The slow movement, the Adagio, is a tender memory of a mother who passed away, made deeper by the horn.
Composed as early as in the 21st century, the Trio for horn, violin and piano by the American composer Eric Ewazen is a tribute to Brahms’ work. Intended for the same set of instruments, it becomes a sentimental styled piece, an echo of a masterpiece.
