...when Haydn heard the Op. 1 trios he praised them but thought the public would not understand or accept the third, in C minor. One suspects that Haydn himself may have been put off by the extremes of tempo, dynamics, texture and local chromatic action in this piece, and still more by the resulting emotional aura. He would not have been the last listener to find something callow and stagey which is to say essentially impersonal, in these insistent gestures of pathos and high drama. Beethoven of course paid no attention to his advice and published increasingly sophisticated C minor items in nearly every one of his composite sets of works over the next eight years...
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The Trio for Piano, Clarinet and Cello (op.11), dedicated to the mother of Princess Lichnowsky [that is Countess Maria Wilhelmine von Thun], was published on Oct. 3 [1798]. This is the composition which brought [pianist-composer rival Daniel] Steibelt and Beethoven into collision, to the sad discomfiture of the former. Steibelt had shown him studied neglect until they met at Count Fries's, at the first performance of this Trio, and he then treated him quite de haut en bas. A week later they met again, when Steibelt produced a new Quintet and extemporized on the theme of Beethoven's Finale--an air from Wiegl's Amor marinaro. Beethoven's blood was now fairly up; taking the cello part of Steibelt's quintet he placed it upside down before him, and making a theme out of it played with such effect as to drive Steibelt from the room. Possibly this fracas may account for Beethoven's known dissatisfaction with the Finale.
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