When Smetana composed his Piano trio in the autumn of 1855, it was an act of catharsis to recover from the death of his four-year-old daughter Friederike. This highly emotional work was also his first large-scale piece of chamber music. Its first public performance in December 1855 was regrettably not a great success, and so Smetana embarked on a protracted process of reworking it.

By the late 1850s, it had reached its current form. Smetana always liked to perform it, but only found a publish...