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This set of variations was Beethoven's last published work for piano, violin, and cello. The variation theme was a popular hit of the day, a song from Wenzel Muller's comic opera The Sisters of Prague, first produced in Vienna in 1794. Beethoven probably wrote this trio in 1803 and revised it in 1816. Given their sophisticated style, both the introductory Adagio and final Allegretto were no doubt written at the later date.

In Muller's opera the character Krispin introduces himself by extolling the virtues of the tailor's life: "I am the Tailor Cockatoo, have traveled throughout the world, and am from head to toe a flat iron hero." From this simple tune, Beethoven created a set of humorous variations, characterized by their classical purity, precision, and restraint. In contrast to the lightheartedness of the bright G Major tune, Beethoven composed a slow, serious, and profound introduction in g minor. Muller's little tune emerges as an anti-climax after so portentous an introduction; that, no doubt, is part of Beethoven's joke.

The variations offer great variety in their scoring, both solo and in combination. Ileen Zovluck observes that they alternate between "delightfully brilliant displays and highly academic sessions." Variation 1, for piano solo, presents the theme in elaborate figurations in the right hand over dotted rhythms in the left. The violin joins for the second variation, playing the theme lightly over arpeggios and broken chords in the piano. In Variation 3 the cello offers the theme highly decorated over the piano's mostly quiet accompaniment. The theme first appears in the piano in Variation 4, but the strings soon take it over while the piano provides a lively accompaniment. In sharp contrast, Variation 5 features all three instruments in a sweet, undulating canon.

The light and swift sixth variation finds the theme hidden in florid piano passages set against sporadic, single note commentaries in the strings. The piano remains silent during Variation 7, a delicate duet in canon in the strings. Both strings and piano alternate in crisp staccato statements of the theme in the eighth variation. An Adagio expressivo, the ninth variation finds the theme elongated and once again in canon. The music returns to its characteristic jocularity in the lengthier Variation 10 where the piano works out the theme in triplets against string accompaniment; some fugal treatment offers contrapuntal interest. The Allegretto provides an extended finale to the set, opening with a contrapuntal duet for strings with piano commentary and closing with a brilliant flourish of virtuosity in all three instruments.

Schumann wrote three piano trios, two in 1847, and the third, in g minor, in 1851. A severe illness in 1848 was the first step in the mental derangement that finally overwhelmed the composer, and Homer Ulrich contends that the g minor trio suffers from the decline of Schumann's "faculty of imagination." He sees the trio as an uneven work that has moments of "genuine Schumannesque humor and energy" but that also contains "irrelevant sections that wander aimlessly." On the other hand, John Daviero laments that this trio, which he considers a late masterpiece, is hardly known to modern audiences.

The expansive first movement, marked "agitatedly, but not too fast," opens with the theme, stated first in the violin and then in the cello over an undulating piano accompaniment. The music is full of longing and urgency. Throughout the movement the strings often engage in dialogue; sometimes piano and strings converse; at other times they echo each other.

Structurally, the second movement is a simple ABA form. Marked "rather slowly," it offers a contrast to the energy of the first movement. It begins delicately as violin and cello sing the main theme over quiet chords in the piano, but soon the cello introduces a new section (marked "somewhat more agitatedly") in a rumbling staccato that is picked up by both piano and violin. This music grows even faster ("schneller") and more complex, but the agitation eventually subsides as the beautiful opening theme returns. Now, for the first time, the piano states the elegant theme, after which the movement unwinds in florid passages in piano, cello, and violin.

Schumann indicates that the third movement, in the dark key of c minor, is to be played faster ("rasch"); the piano introduces a busy theme that spans more than an octave before descending to its starting note. David Ferguson considers this movement the most original in the trio, describing it as "Intermezzo-like, with a sort of conscious naivety that is quite charming." After the energetic opening theme, the music slows into a song for violin with a simple cello and piano accompaniment. After a brief return of the first theme, a new march-like theme enters; its dramatic dotted rhythms are familiar in Schumann's characteristic style. The first theme returns to round out the movement.

The final movement, marked "powerfully, with humor," concludes the work. Here humor does not mean comicality, but rather a capricious mood. Appropriately, the music changes keys a number of times as new themes are introduced. After a shift to the bright world of G Major, the music ends in a unison thematic statement of swirling arpeggios.

Brahms completed the B Major trio, his first published piece of chamber music, in 1854. It was a large and extravagant work, which Susan Halpern describes as "the product of an exuberantly fertile imagination not yet disciplined by experience." In 1889, the publisher Simrock suggested that Brahms revise any early works with which he was dissatisfied. The Piano Trio in B Major was Brahms' only revision; the result was a new and different composition, two-thirds the length of the original, but still massive and in a style that now matched his later chamber music.

In this trio, as in his other chamber works with piano, Brahms establishes a duality of tonal bodies. Set against the strings, the piano part is full and magnificently written. As a result, the piano carries half of the tonal weight, and the combination of instruments offers the composer ample opportunity, says Homer Ulrich, to "develop a massive, multivoiced medium capable of carrying a detailed contrapuntal texture."

The monumental structure of the trio is apparent immediately in the first movement's sonata form: the series of phrases constituting the pensive first theme require forty measures for their unfolding. After the first theme rises to a great climax of sonority, the cello states a lyrically beautiful second theme. Later sections are laid out on an equally massive scale with many ideas and themes; at the end, the music subsides into a tranquil coda.

For the second movement Brahms left the playful Scherzo mostly intact from the 1854 version; Halpern describes the movement as "a fairy-dance in the Mendelssohn tradition." The light and airy scherzo in b minor drives the music forward, piano and strings often trading thematic passages. The central trio in B Major presents a contrasting folk-inspired waltz, after which the repetition of the spirited scherzo leads to a brief coda.

The Adagio is serene, its opening hymn-like meditation followed by an extended and warm cello solo. The piano and strings engage in a more thickly textured conversation before the return of the opening theme concludes the movement.

The finale, a sonata form Allegro, opens with a disquieting theme introduced in the cello; after the music builds to a dramatic climax, the piano states a second, restless theme accompanied by off-beats in the cello. Following extensive development of these ideas, the recapitulation and coda bring the trio to a glorious, sweeping conclusion.