At Seventy

Following my 70^th birthday party in The Plough Inn at Wolvercote, I stumbled through some half-prepared, half-enunciated, half-baked thoughts that may have left the company confused (or at least half-confused). I try to enunciate those thoughts here.

One of the words I had scribbled on a scrap of paper was 'Pinnacles'. The thought there was that I was not going to attempt to summarize my life in terms of achievements or great moments. Of course I had my moments; in research and in family life. But I remember the depression I caused my father simply by asking him to note down the salient features of his life in case we forgot details when he could no longer correct us. He jotted down some notes, but that threw a pall over his spirits, which hung over him for weeks. A keen reader of biographies, he emphatically rejected the idea of a biography of his own life. Similarly, I remembered my reflex rejoinder to my son Richard when we were discussing "You and Your Research" by Dr. Richard W. Hamming (and Medawar's "Advice to a young scientist"), for I said that doing significant science, while admirable, is not the only worthwhile life-aim or life-justification. As a retired scientist I do not want to count my publications or rank my contributions. I seek my justification elsewhere. Jean Anne said she thought of me as a basically cheerful or contented person, which gratified me.  I would like to see myself that way too, for lurking right behind me is the black shadow of failure, the 'nearly made it' man, the too lazy, self-complacent, or forgetful man. I awake from more dreams of failure than dreams of success. But I rather deliberately look the other way; and furthermore I advocate that others do likewise. I like to count as the pinnacles of my happiness and ground of my gratitude that myriad upon myriad of exquisite moments that life can offer most of us, like opening an apple, or seeing a flock of starlings or feeling rain on one's face. They are too many to count, but not too many to savour; and the savouring can fill the day, the year, the life.

I tried to say something about my un-analysed desire to introduce my family to my friends and friends to family; my yearning for a circle (like the Bloomsbury Set) which had not just the spokes but also the rim of the wheel; a fellowship. Perhaps I uniquely enjoyed my few years as a fellow of Clare College for that reason; a fellowship entirely without competitiveness, great scholars who cheerfully sat down with young research fellows with the shared aim of mutual enjoyment and common improvement.

I wonder if I managed to deliver my message.

L. Cawstein
cawstein@gmail.com

Programme Notes

String Quartet in D, (Op. 18/3)  –––––  Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827)

i. Allegro, ii. Andante con moto, iii. Allegro, iv. Presto.

The Opus 18 set of 6 quartets were the first that Beethoven published and are dedicated to Count Lobkowitz. No. 3 is thought to have been written during the winter 1798/9 and to be the first composed of the set. The first movement opens with a motif of two notes alla breve (one note per bar), jumping up a 7th.  The alla breve motif recurs and, at a pivotal point in the movement we find its full 8 bar statement. While all the other movements are in D, the second is in B♭. Its cantabile main theme is built out of a 4 note figure three times repeated. The sound of a ticking clock briefly recalls Haydn, until sudden key changes re-establish the vigorous originality of Beethoven's genius. Where Haydn and Mozart would characteristically place a Minuet-and-Trio (a graceful 3/4 movement), and Beethoven and Schubert give us a Scherzo (a speeded up and jokey minuet+trio), Beethoven here gives us simply a tempo marking - "Allegro". However, it is in essence the world's first Scherzo; it is brief, in 3/4 time, rhythmically emphatic but harmonically uncomplicated, has a more sombre section in the minor key, followed by a return to the beginning. From the sketches it is clear that the presto finale is not Beethoven's original, but a second try. Though not called a scherzo, it is full of 'jokes'. Its capering 'Hauptthema' is  played across the bar lines creating confusion at the end of the phrases. Towards the end of the exposition the violins seem to be in one key and the cello in another. Finally the movement ends pianissimo, or rather it vanishes.

String Quartet in F♯ minor, (Op. 50/4)  ––– Franz Joseph Haydn (1732 - 1809)

i. Allegro spirituoso, ii. Andante, iii. Menuetto/Trio, iv. Finale fuga (Allegro moderato)

Haydn, aged 55 in 1787, was still employed at Esterhazy, but was lonely in the countryside and might have been casting around for a change of employment. (He came to England 4 years later.) This set of 6 quartets is dedicated to Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia. In it Haydn seems to be reacting to the challenge of Mozart's recently completed "Haydn" quartets (1785), regarded by some as the pinnacle of the genre, and themselves a response to Haydn's magnificent Opus 33 set. Completed 6 years after Opus 33, the Opus 50 works seem more musicological, self-conscious, written for connoisseurs; terse, complex, light in texture and 'classical'. They are not the most frequently played of Haydn's 83 quartets.  No. 4 is in the remote key of F♯ minor. It has a spirited first movement and a magical slow movement. Both the last 2 movements are short. The trio section of the Minuet is unusual in being fugal, as is the bulk of the exceptionally terse Finale.

Quintet for clarinet & strings, (K. 581)  ––––  Wolfgang  Mozart (1756 - 1791)

i. Allegro, ii. Larghetto, iii. Menuetto and Trios, iv. Allegretto con Variazioni.

Mozart completed his quintet for clarinet and strings KV581 in September 1789, dedicating it in his personal catalogue to "Herr Stadler the elder", and describing it the following year as the "Stadler Quintet". It was a time of acute financial hardship and depression for Mozart. Austria was at war with Holland, Prussia and the Ottoman empire, and at home Emperor Joseph's reforms were weakening and alarming aristocratic patrons. However, none of this shows in his work. The quintet, predominantly in A, is throughout characterized by the exceptionally lyrical quality of the clarinet tone; liquid and mellifluous. One concludes that here, as elsewhere, Mozart wrote for a particular musician. For the most part the clarinet is not a soloist but an integral part of the ensemble. An exception is the first cantabile theme of the D major slow movement, given to the clarinet over an accompaniment of muted strings. The Minuet is unusual in having two Trio sections (M-T1-M-T2-M) the first of which is in A minor without clarinet, the second in A major and with a prominent clarinet part. The last movement contains 4 variations on a theme of classical symmetry (4 bars falling to the dominant; 4 bars returning to the tonic). After the theme and 4 variations, there is an adagio passage before an allegro reprise and coda.

L. Cawstein
cawstein@gmail.com

Federal Europe 2

Federal Europe: Should we blame Germany ?

" Greece cannot compete with Germany; but need it?"

Germany tends to export more to the world than it imports from it, so, while Germany runs a trade surplus, its trading partners have to run a deficit. This attitude to trade is termed mercantilism and was common throughout Europe from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, whereupon in most of the developed world Free Trade gradually won the day with more complex models and mechanism for balancing the value of trade. However, in Germany a liking for mercantilism lingered and, some say lingers still [Sergio Cesaratto, Antonella Stirati, (2011) "Germany and the European and Global Crises"; n. 607].

Tied to the mercantilist notion of a positive trade balance, is the notion that the accumulation of bullion constituted the accumulation of wealth in a country. Mercantilism (as its name implies) is the product of merchants, and to some extent of the Civil Service. In the heyday of European mercantilism (1340-1789; or from the Black Death to the French Revolution) mercantilism made a certain amount of sense. A trade deficit meant that a country ran out of gold. Without gold it could not field a significant army. If you could out-trade your competitors, you could probably vanquish them in the field as well, exclude them from markets, seize their colonies, etc.; the British have done all these. The highly competitive commercial policy of mercantilism goes 'hand-in-glove' with an equally aggressive foreign policy.

The attack on mercantilism was the work, not of remorseful merchants, but of philosophers and theorists (Locke, Hume, Smith, Ricardo). Mercantilism is today regarded (generally if not universally) as in error. Trade need not be a 'zero-sum' game in which the gain of one is the loss of another; it is now accepted that it is possible for trade to benefit both parties. Furthermore, Adam Smith also argued that the accumulation of bullion does a country no more good than an accumulation of peppercorns; bullion is just another commodity. As gold flows out of a country its value will rise; similarly its value will fall in a country where there is a net export of goods (and thus import of gold).

But, let us return to 20^th century Europe, and test the notion that Greece and Germany cannot co-exist in the Euro. Before the introduction of the Euro the currency markets would quickly bring the system into equilibrium. With excessive import of German goods, the value of the Greek drachma would sink relative to the D-Mark, making German exports to Greece prohibitively expensive. The Eurozone removed this automatic 'regulator of trade' and 'balancer of budgets'. No longer would Greece automatically stop buying German cars when it ran out of D-Marks.

What should have happened is that, as Greece ran out of Euros, their value in Greece should have risen; Greek salaries expressed in Euros should have fallen. However, the opposite happened; the Greeks (perhaps looking at salaries and wages in the rest of the Eurozone) let their own wages rise much faster than the Eurozone average. [The Greek public payroll rose from 38 percent of state revenue in 2000 to 55 percent in 2009.] Trade balance was lost, and money flowed out of the country. Fiscal balance was lost and the Government borrowed. Why not? 

Against borrowing the natural control is interest rate. Excessive borrowing raises interest rates, but by two different mechanisms; as lenders fear their debtors will devalue, and as lenders fear their debtors will default. Greece in the Eurozone cannot devalue; so interest rates were initially low, and debt accumulated. There seems also to have been a deliberate hiding by the Greek government of the real level of government debt. Now that proper EU scrutiny has been made, the markets and rating agencies seem to consider default likely. That might be the best option. Those who protest against default are probably the creditors who would lose the money they should never have lent in the first place. In the meantime the ECB and IMF authorities have imposed severe austerity measures, capping salaries, etc. Unfortunately, cutting public salaries by 20% cuts tax revenue by more than 20%. The debt:GDP ratio grows worse.

This fiasco need not have happened, and need not happen again. The Eurozone is a new concept, and there is much to learn. The main point I am making here is that because Greece cannot devalue the external value of the Euro to promote exports it must learn to revalue the internal value of the Euro; i.e. change internal prices and salaries.

(See also my post: http://occidentis.blogspot.com/2011/09/greek-debt.html.)

Federal Europe 1

Federal Europe: how can rich and poor co-exist ?

"If Ecuador can share a currency with USA, why not Greece with Germany?"

In the nineteen eighties and early nineties the ethos in the European Communities (EC) was positive, expansionist, welcoming. Funding was made available to improve impoverished corners of Europe, and to fund collaborative research between member states. The motive was no doubt to entice conservative populations into the concept of a united Europe. It seemed to be an accepted principle that all Europeans should enjoy the same benefits and the same standard of living. No one complained.

No one accept me. Holidaying in southern Europe, as we northerners love to do, I was struck by the absurdity of this thinking. Those who live in the sunshine do not need shopping arcades and motorways; they do not need work, achievement, wealth, museums and theatres in order to feel that life is worthwhile, for it is so patently enjoyable simply to sit under a tree and to wait for the cool of the evening. Europe, extending from Norway to Spain and from Ireland to Hungary, comprises very different lifestyles and life-purposes, as well as very different standards of living. This has been true for centuries, and no doubt for millennia. I have implied that it is largely to do with climate, though historical accidents will have played a part; and to some extent migration will have allowed people to select a climate, a culture, and a lifestyle, that suits their temperament. It should never have been part of the European mission to even-out cultural and economic differences; both are intimately connected to each other and to the terrain.

Simon Wolfson (Baron Wolfson of Aspley Guise; Next, P.O Box 4000, Sheffield, S97 3ET) believes it is impossible for rich Germany and poor Greece to co-exist in the Eurozone and to share a common currency. (Admittedly, some others share that view). I, on the other hand, question the impossibility of rich and poor countries sharing a common currency.

I was surprised to learn that Ecuador (in 2000) adopted the US dollar as its national currency. Their own monetary unit, the Sucre, came off the gold-standard in 1932 at 5.95 to the US dollar but by the end of the millennium had sunk to 25,000 to the dollar. Its rapid slide was a disadvantage to trade and tourism. Ecuador does not have access to the US Federal Bank, and it cannot print dollars. But it has complete sovreignty over its interal finances; it can raise and spend tax with complete independence from the USA. If Ecuador runs a trade surplus with the USA it keeps the dollars; it thus misses out on the interest that would accrue if it bought US bonds. The US on the other hand benefits from what amounts to an interest-free loan of the 'goods and services' it gains in this exchange.  (International Economics, Robert Carbaugh, 13^th ed. 2011). In effect, Ecuador opted, in 2000, to go back onto a sort of gold-standard; a pseudo-gold-standard (Milton Friedman, Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. 4, Oct., (1961) pp. 66- .)  Ecuador and the USA are vastely different in per capita wealth yet they share a common currency. This is only possible while Ecuador operates a fiscal balance internally, and a trade balance externally. If Ecuador can share a currency with USA, why not Greece with Germany?

How on earth were the indebted countries of the Eurozone allowed to break the obviously inexorable rules regarding balancing both tax and trade budgets? Some people were aparently prepared to lend the Greek government money which it promptly spent. I think those lenders were at least as guilty as the borrowers, particularly as their motive was personal gain. So, let the borrowers default! 

Growth

(Note added 29th December 2023

https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04962/SN04962.pdf)

growth of the economy

"Do not be deceived — 1% growth in GDP means 4% shrinkage of the economy."

For my previous aperçus regarding Greek Debt and Bank Capitalization see my Occidentis blog. I am now puzzling over the terminology in which the government and hence the media discuss growth of the economy. We are told day-after-day, week-after-week that the only way to get out of deficit is "Growth", and that the Office of National Statistics has downgraded estimates for past quarterly growth from  0.5% to 0.4%; while the Office for Budget Responsibility  has similarly downgraded its forecasts for future growth. We 'Small-is-Beautiful' people, i.e. those of us who have no ambition to conquer the world economically, might wonder why we should not be content with the status quo. Why do we need always to grow? But wait!

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) attempts to measure the total productivity of a country and is defined by an agreed formula usually written as the sum of gross private consumption + government spending + businesses' capital investment + net exports (or exports minus imports):

GDP = C + G + I + NX

Data is widely available stretching back decades and it is clear that since the second world war there has been an almost logarithmic growth in British GDP, with a doubling time of about 10 years. However, data on inflation show that the cost of a standard and agreed mix of purchases such as the Consumer Price Index (which has replaced the slightly more inflationary Retail Price Index) has shown an almost identical growth over the same period.

In other words gross domestic production (as opposed to GDP) has NOT incresased by more than a whisker in the last several decades if we correct for inflation. The increase in the 30 years from 1980, corrected for inflation is not 4 fold; it is a mere 1.1 fold; i.e. a 10% increase in 30 years. It further means that, with current inflation running at 5% (per annum) and current GDP increasing at a mere 1% p.a., the economy is not in stasis — it is shrinking. Do not be deceived; 1% growth in GDP means a 4% shrinkage of the economy. So maybe we do need to see a rising GDP expressed, as it is, in a shrinking currency.

When I was a boy it was not uncommon to see a working horse with 'blinkers'; leather patches attached to the bridle such that the horse could not see to left or right, and only obliquely could it see ahead where it was going. I was told that this was so that the horse would not be alarmed by passing traffic. I think politicians have put blinkers on us the public, so that we do not get alarmed at what is going on. Recession to the BBC (Radio 4 World at One pm) means negative growth in GDP; to me it means negative growth in 'real terms'; i.e. any growth in GDP that is less than inflation.

On the other hand, a dramatic decline in gross private consumption does not worry me particularly, even when measured in real terms, for we were consuming far more than we were manufacturing during those boom years; we were busily spending money imagined for us by the financial sector and now imagined away again; dream money (see Bank Capitalization). What should worry us is not a decline in living standards, for we are still absurdly well off, but high youth unemployment. As a nation we have to find a product that the world wants to buy, and settle down to make it at a price that tempts buyers. We are most of us sitting around waiting for someone else to think up what that product is and build the requisite factory, so of all people we waiters cannot complain. We can only wait patiently, and hope that somebody, somewhere, it doing the thinking.

Programme Notes (Op.2/3)

Piano Sonata in C major, Op. 2, No.3 — Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827)

i.   Allegro con brio, ii. Adagio, iii. Scherzo, allegro, iv. Allegro assai. 

This sonata, published in 1796, is the 3^rd of Beethoven's published sonatas and bears a dedication to Franz Joseph Haydn. In July 1792 Haydn persuaded Elector Maximilian of Bonn to give Beethoven 2 years' leave so that he could study composition with Haydn in Vienna. In 1794 Haydn returned to London for his second visit leaving Beethoven in Vienna, no longer supported by the Elector but earning his own living, by playing, teaching and composing. (His Op. 1 trios, published in 1795, earned Beethoven enough money to support him for the best part of a year.)  Our Op. 2 sonata, 3^rd in the set and the most virtuosic, is strongly Haydnesque (humorous, extrovert, classical, and rhythmically vigorous), yet it is clearly Beethovian also, thematically inventive, experimental in key changes and departures from sonata-form; and in expressing more emotion than Haydn. (You may hear an interesting discussion of the sonata by Andras Schiff at http://audio.theguardian.tv/sys-audio/Arts/Culture/2006/11/01/SonataCOp2No3.mp3)

 

7 Fantasien, Op. 116   ———   Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897)

In 1890, after writing his 2^nd string quintet, the 57-year-old Brahms decided to give up composing. However, he soon resumed, writing (in his remaining 6 years) 4 works for clarinet, 4 sets of short piano pieces (Opp. 116 – 119), and some vocal music. He died in April 1897 (11 months after Clara Schumann). These later sets, like his earlier forays in the genre, may represent in some respects a backward glance at the integrated cycles of short piano pieces that were among Schumann's most characteristic works. Brahms' style is a lyrical, but carefully structured, romanticism; he avoids the 'flying trapeeze' virtuosity of Liszt, and the 'story-telling' romanticism of the Liszt/Wagner school. Though not himself polemical, Brahms was often put forward as the antithesis of Liszt/Wagner romanticism. Opus 116 (composed 1892) comes 13 years after his immediately preceding piano work – the 2 rhapsodies of Op.79. The Op.116 set is not so rich in tunes as either the earlier or the later sets; there is a slight tendency to wooden chords, and a quaint reliance on instructions to play with the "uttermost intimateness of feeling", or "sweetness". The  piano writing lies well under the hands – if you have very big hands. (The pieces end as often as not with a 10-note chord; literally 2 hands full.) Compared with Op. 79 there is much rhythmic innovation and complexity (notes across-the-barlines, 3-beats-against-2, etc.). It might be said that, with Op. 116, Brahms was exploring and developing a form he perfected in Opp. 117, and 118. It contains 7 pieces; the capriccios are fast and energetic, the intermezzi slower and more relaxed.

1. Capriccio — Presto energico (D minor);  2. Intermezzo — Andante (A minor); 3. Capriccio — Allegro passionato (G minor); 4. Intermezzo — Adagio (E major); 5. Intermezzo — Andante con grazia ed intimissimo sentimento (E minor); 6. Intermezzo — Andantino teneramente (E major); 7. Capriccio — Allegro agitato (D minor)

 

Piano sonata No. 1 in B minor  —————  Franz Liszt (1811 – 1886)

The B minor sonata is considered by many to be Liszt's greatest work for solo piano, and is remarkable in his oeuvre in being 'pure music' (i.e. not programmatic, not depicting fountains, or runaway horses.) It was written in Weimar in 1852-3 where Liszt had retired from his peripatetic life as a virtuoso to concentrate on composition (at the urging of Princess Carolyne Wittgenstein with whom he spent the last 40 years of his life). It is dedicated to Robert Schumann, who had 16 years earlier dedicated his Op. 17 Fantasie to Liszt.  Though there are tempo markings and key changes indicating distinct sections, the 30 minute work is played as a single continuous whole. It is held together by its themes, of which there are 5 that recur in different forms — now heroic, now lyrical. Given the lifelong artistic antagonism between Brahms and Liszt, it is amusing to note that in May 1853 the 20 year old Brahms, touring with the violinist RemŽnyi  and fatigued from travelling, fell asleep while Liszt played through the barely completed and still unpublished B minor sonata. (The following year Liszt seems* unaccountably to have lost the manuscript of an early Brahms sonata for violin & piano which Brahms had left with him!) The dedication to Robert Schumann seems nowhere more relevant than in the final 20 bars, where the Lento assai sinks gradually into silence, for that calls to mind the similar ending of Schumann's Kinderszenen. This was not Liszt's original ending, as can be seen in the facsimile score (see: International Music Score Library Project) where a FF ending is crossed out in red ink and the PPP ending substituted; maybe when the Schumann dedication was decided upon. (In support of this suggestion, let me quote Liszt's letter* to Schumann, 5^th June 1839 "As for the Scenes of Childhood, I owe to them one of the keenest joys of my life.....") (*La Mara's Letters)

(Programme notes complied from various sources by Ian West.)

 

Programme Notes

Piano Trio no.4  in E Minor, ('Dumky') —— Antonin Dvořák (1841 - 1904)

i.       Lento Maestoso, ii. Poco Adagio, iii. Andante, iv. Andante Moderato, v. Allegro, vi. Lento Maestoso. 

A 'dumky', according to Wikipedia, is a "Slavic (specifically Ukrainian) epic ballad … generally thoughtful or melancholic in character."  It traditionally alternates cheerful with melancholic moods, and its importance in music is that it is not sonata-form. Dvořák wrote several dumky movements but in this work each of its 6 sections is a 'dumky'. The first 3 sections (in the related keys of E, C♯, A) run together forming a complex first movement; the last 3 sections are in the less related keys of D, E♭ and C respectively. In 1891, at the age of 50, Dvořák was already an international celebrity with his Stabat Mater, his violin concerto, 3 of his 4 trios, 5 of his 8 quartets, and 8 of his 9 symphonies behind him; but his three greatest and best loved works were still to come — the American quartet ('93), the New World symphony ('93), and the cello concerto ('94). He composed this piano trio in 1891 and, at its premier in Prague, he himself played the piano part. It was a great success and, before Dvořák left in 1892 to take up a 3-year appointment at the conservatory in New York, the trio was played all over his homeland in a 40 concert tour.

Piano Trio no.2 in E minor, Op.67 ——— Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 – 1975)

i.       Andante,  ii. Allegro con brio,  iii. Largo,  iv. Allegretto

The terrible, 3-year-long, siege of Leningrad began in early 1941 while Shostakovich was teaching at the conservatory there. He volunteered for action, but was rejected because of his short-sightedness. He contributed, however, by making speeches and composing. By Christmas '41, after all birds, rats and pets had been eaten, there were reports of cannibalism, and those who could do so escaped, including the Shostakovich family. In May '42 the score of his heroic 7^th symphony was smuggled back into the city across German lines and on 9^th August the symphony was played by the skeletal Radio orchestra of Leningrad (augmented by anyone who could play an instrument) and broadcast on loudspeakers throughout the city and out towards the German lines. That date marks the turning point of the siege which nevertheless lasted till January 1944. Shostakovich (aged 38) then started work on his 2^nd piano trio which was premiered in Leningrad 10 months after the lifting of the siege. The first half of the Andante is rather desolate, on muted strings, but gathers energy, which is the 'keynote' of the 2^nd movement. In the last movement plaintive Klezmer melodies alternate with anger (hypnotic and obsessively repetitive), till a degree of resolution is achieved in the last dozen bars. There is no doubt that Shostakovich's eventual response to the war was not heroic, but deeply negative. Jewish melodies (as in the last movement) are a recurrent theme in this as in much of Shostakovich's post war work but his pro-semitism was purely sympathetic; his close friend, the Jewish polymath Sollertinsky, to whose memory the work is dedicated, died February 1944.

++++++++     Interval of 20 minutes     ++++++++

Piano Trio no.1 in B flat major D898  ———  Schubert (1770 - 1827)

i.       Allegro moderato, ii. Andante un poco mosso, iii. Scherzo (allegro), iv. Rondo (allegro vivace)

It has been said "No chamber work by Schubert is more popular than the B flat major Trio". Commenced in 1827, completed in 1828, the last year of Schubert's life, it nevertheless carries no traces of the anguish that appears in "Der Winterreise" and the string quintet. Schubert always had devoted admirers but little public fame. However, in 1827 he was brought to Beethoven's deathbed and (if the story is correct) received praise. In that year also he began to be approached by publishers, and was finally acknowledged by the Musikverein of Vienna.

The first movement has several captivating themes which rotate. As the movement unfolds you think you have heard this tune before; and you have of course, but in a subtly different key. The only sombre touch is towards the end where there is a bar of complete silence; the effect is astonishing, as though a gap in the continuum of time momentarily opens, to reveal…... The Andante is a perfect example of Schubert's counterpoint — three voices each saying entirely different things yet completely agreeing, and never obscuring each other. The scherzo is rhythmic rather than tuneful, but has a softer and more melodic trio section. The finale is a rondo, with tune after tune chasing each other as in the first movement, though rhythmically it is more like the scherzo. The tremolo sections are spooky but not sinister. The Schubertian key-changes are again a little spooky as you shoot suddenly off into a parallel universe. Throughout the trio the piano balances the strings perfectly; in the first movement mostly giving us three voices, but in the Rondo more often two voices with the strings doubling each other in octaves like the piano.