Like in Vienna

When Antoine Reicha settled in Paris, at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, he aspired to foster the birth of a new chamber music repertoire, modeled on the one he had witnessed developing during his stay in Vienna. In Germany, after Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schubert, and Schumann appropriated the piano trio, making it an essential genre.

At the same time, in France, despite Reicha's ambitions, few dared to experiment with this field: virtuosic pieces conceived outside the Viennese canon were preferred. Little known to their contemporaries and performed mostly in private settings, Reicha and Onslow's trios nonetheless demonstrate that the French school also had much to offer.