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This recording thus shows how the very variated forms and sounds of polyphonic music became popular with music lovers in Central Europe at the height of the Middle Ages, not only in aristocratic circles but in monasteries and ecclesiastical communities, among students, and scholary lazmen in city schools and in the universities.

There can be no doubt that the medieval university contributed significantly to the spread of education and culture in the broadest sense of the word. Since the first stage of university education was the Faculty of the seven liberal Arts, one of which was ars musica, we may assume that the universities also helped to propagate the art of music, and indeed guaranteed its progress.

The composition Triple Concerto in C Major op. 56 for piano, violin, cello and orchestra by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) falls within the period of his first sketches for the fifth symphony and the fourth piano concerto, work for the opera Leonora (Fidelio) as well as creation of piano sonatas op. 53 (Waldstein) and op. 57 (Appassionata). Use of three solo instruments and orchestra points on the one hand back into history, to the practice of the concerto grosso with a solo group and orchestral tutti, and to concertante symphonies, as we know them for example from the works of Mozart. At the same time however, it indicates further development which led to symphonisation of the solo concerto. In a letter to the Leipzig publisher Breitkopf on 26 August 1804, Beethoven stated that he was interested in the work being published as soon as possible as his “composition with three concerto voices is something new”. According to some suppositions, the piano part was meant for the Habsburg Archduke Rudolf (the next Archibishop of Olomouc), who Beethoven did not however get to know until several years later; it is dedicated to Prince Franz Joseph Maximilian Fürst von Lobkowitz. A composition was published in 1807 under the name Grand Concerto Concertant in print and the first public performance took place in Vienna in May 1808. The piano part was evidently played by Marie Bigot (who was also the first person to perform Appassionata), the violinist at the premiere was the Prussian court musician Carl August Seidler who lived in Vienna for several years (his father-in-law was the Czech composer Antonín Vranický) and the cellist was Antonín Kraft, originally from Bohemia. Of the trio of solo instruments, the cello part is the most striking, presenting the solo theme in the first movement and also having a distinct cantabile passage in the second movement. The first movement is the most extensive movement of all in Beethoven’s cyclic compositions; the thematic material is presented four times (by the solo instruments and by the orchestra), Beethoven’s inventiveness does not however allow the movement to come across as overly large. Its seriousness is compensated for by the charm of the second movement. As divulged by the “alla polacca” signature, the final rondo makes use of a polonaise dance rhythm which was popular at that time.

Notification was published in the Wiener Zeitung in May 1795 of subscription of Beethoven’s three trios for piano, violin and cello (E-flat major, G major and C minor), announced as “œuvre première”, op. 1. The publication in print was implemented at the instigation of Prince Karl Lichnowsky and the trios are dedicated to him. The compositions were also first performed in Lichnowsky’s house in March 1795, with Joseph Haydn who had just returned from England in attendance. At that time, Beethoven was still regarded as a pupil of Haydn, although in his op. 1, he already breaks free from this mould. Four movements in the trios (instead of the three movements usual until that time) betray an attempt to lend a symphonic dimension to chamber compositions using these instruments – in this sense, Beethoven’s piano trios relate to the Triple Concerto which was composed several years later. Announcement of subscription for op. 1 by an unknown composer was a risk for the publisher. It was necessary to gain at least 35 subscribers for the expenses to be recouped, but thanks to promotion by Lichnowsky, the print run was exceeded many times over. Piano Trio in C Minor is regarded as the most successful of the trio. In his cyclic compositions, Beethoven always strove for an internal connection between the movements; here for example such a binding feature is represented by the emphasised e-flat minor third interval in the final movement. Beethoven returned to the composition in 1817, not of his own will, but at the request of an amateur musician who had reworked the composition for a string quintet and asked the composer to proof it. Various arrangements helped to popularise a work and so Beethoven agreed, although preferring to undertake the composition himself, giving the work its own opus number 104 and making a note on the manuscript stating that the “original was destroyed by fire”.