Frédéric Chopin composed his piano trio when he was an 18-year-old student. About the performance of the trio on 31 August 1830 he wrote: “On Sunday we rehearsed the trio. Perhaps because I haven’t heard it for a while, I was very happy with myself (fortunate man!).”

Incidentally, Robert Schumann also shared this opinion, writing in a review: “Is it not as noble as possible, more full of enthusiasm than any song ever written by a poet, original in the smallest detail as in the whole, every no...