Just as I was immersing myself in Afghan singing, how nostalgic the other day to hear the limpid slow movement of Haydn’s G major piano trio on Private passions (for the first of several posts inspired by the series, see here).

Like the Adagio of the Schubert string quintet, it seems suspended beyond time. Of course, it’s not: as ever, we hear it with the successive patinas of our personal listening histories.

The trio is part of a set that Haydn composed in London, and the version that remains with me is that of Alfred Cortot, Jacques Thibaud, and Pablo Casals, recorded on 20th June 1927 at Queen’s Hall. I used to listen to it late at night (after closing time) with friends at Cambridge from 1973—just as Veronica and John were embarking on their Afghan journey, indeed; and as the Rito y geografía del cante flamenco series was being completed, and Li Manshan’s wife gave birth to their first daughter…

Today I wonder how we got into such early recordings, like the late Beethoven of the Busch quartet. They meant a lot to me—but I can’t quite say what: this was considerably before I became involved in early music, or began to care about changing performance styles. Indeed, in those days I was more interested in the politics of the Tang court than in the experiences of our more recent European forebears.

But now I think of the trio’s London audiences between the wars (my great-aunt Edith Miles was losing her hearing in 1927), and wartime audiences in Britain and Germany (doubtless the appalling Hans Frank loved the trio). The group had been working together since 1906; but Casals, a firm opponent of franquismo, later broke with Cortot for the latter’s collaboration with the Nazi occupation of France.

Cortot’s 1932 recording of the break in Brandenburg 5 is also great, but early renditions of baroque music may not always suit modern tastes, like Mengelberg’s 1939 Matthew passion.

Haydn dedicated the set of trios to Rebecca Schroeter, Scottish widow of an immigrant German musician (for a taste of late-18th-century mores, see here). So we might further try to imagine cosmopolitan London in 1795 (for “das Land ohne Musik“, see David Wyn Jones ed., Music in eighteenth-century Britain, and for London concert life, here; cf. audiences of Tang-dynasty Chang’an, enriched by Central Asian musics—”They come over ‘ere…“).

I don’t know how to fill in the 19th-century lacuna, but despite all the vast social changes since 1795, maybe Haydn’s day isn’t so distant: we seem to have a photo of Mozart’s widow, and Casals was born in 1876.

Haydn’s trio is named after its “gypsy” finale all’ongarese, which we can enjoy without wondering too much about his exposure to folk music—it is what it is (cf. Norman Lebrecht’s ambitious claim for Mahler 4). From where we are in 2018, all three movements are delightful, but it’s the slow movement (in the lustrous key of E major, like Bruckner 7 and north Chinese ritual suites for wind ensemble!) that continues to enchant me. As the players lovingly pass the tunes around (the second one is even more spellbinding!) above pearly triplets, via Cortot’s simple translucent links, they explore them like tiny jewelled caskets, deep in meditation.

See also Haydn for football; and under In memoriam Fou Ts’ong.