Beethoven’s piano trios span the entire period of his activity in the dual role of composer and pianist. In April 1814, the first two performances of the ‘Archduke’ Trio Op. 97 marked the increasingly deaf composer’s final attempts to play the piano in front of an audience. The pianist and composer Ignaz Moscheles, who was busy preparing the piano reduction of Fidelio under Beethoven’s supervision, was present at one of the performances: “His playing, apart from its spirit, satisfied me less, because it had no cleanness and precision; and yet I noticed many traces of the grand manner, which I had long recognised in his compositions.”