By the time Beethoven wrote his Trio, op. 11 (originally written with clarinet in place of violin), Vienna knew him as both an ambitious, rising composer and a piano virtuoso celebrated for his improvisational abilities. It was at the first performance of the trio, in the home of his friend and disciple Count Ferdinand Ries, that Beethoven was challenged by a rival pianist and composer of the day, Daniel Steibelt (1765-1823). Steibelt had listened disdainfully to the trio, in which the piano looms prominently but not overwhelmingly, and figured that Beethoven was no threat.

Eight days later, the two met at the Count’s home. Following a performance of a quintet of his, Steibelt began to improvise on the same theme that forms the basis of the finale of Beethoven’s trio. Pria ch’io l’impegno was a currently popular tune from the opera L’Amor Marinaro (The Corsair) by Joseph Weigl (1777-1846). Outraged, Beethoven grabbed the cello part to Steibelt’s quintet, set it upside-down on the piano’s music stand, and began to pound out one of its themes with a single finger. His furious improvisations drove Steibelt from the room and the two remained bitter adversaries until their deaths.

That same Weigl tune gave rise to the trio’s occasional nickname, the Gassenhauer or Street Song trio. It was variations on that tune that clarinetist Josef Beer (1744-1811) had requested from Beethoven in the first place. Having succumbed to popular opinion by appropriating this hit to further his career, Beethoven always remained unsatisfied with that movement, though he never penned a substitute. Another sign of his ambition was the work’s dedication to Mozart’s former patron, Countess Maria Wilhelmine von Thun, mother of his own friend and patron, Prince Lichnowsky.

A striking unison statement of the first theme opens the Allegro con brio (4/4); the second theme is introduced by a startling key change. Continuing the tonal adventure, the development begins with the second rather than the first theme. Con espressione is the marking of the Adagio (3/4), headed by the singing cello, then the clarinet. The minor-mode midsection, dominated by the piano, is followed by a varied repeat of the first part.

In the finale, Beethoven dismembers Weigl’s ditty and reconstructs it nine different ways. First is a piano solo; second an unaccompanied clarinet and cello duet; third, a simple con fuoco trio. Variations four and five are minor and major renditions, respectively, of the theme.  Six finds Beethoven playing with the imitation between the piano on one hand and the cello and clarinet on the other. Minor returns in the march-like seventh variation but retreats in the eighth, where jittery piano triplets sound under the melodic clarinet and cello. In the final variation, the trilling piano takes charge of a small development. A dancing 6/8 Allegretto coda concludes the journey.