Piano Trio No. 5 in D Major

The popular nickname for the Piano Trio No. 5, Ghost, doesn’t stem from Beethoven himself, but it applies very well to the huge slow movement that dominates this trio, composed in 1808. The proportions are highly unusual: The two, mostly bright outer movements are significantly shorter than the somber central “Largo,” and the finale in particular could easily have been overshadowed. But the mood of the finale—initially uncertain but growingly warm and playful—can be a relief after the eerie, somber vision of the slow movement, in which Beethoven employs unsettling deep bass tremolandos unlike anything in piano music before. It has been suggested that ideas for the “Largo” were initially conceived for the witches’ scenes in a projected opera on Shakespeare's Macbeth. However plausible that may seem, to many this sounds more like music of dark introspection, a journey into the night side of the soul of a kind which became more frequent in Beethoven’s later years.