Mozart , Haydn & Beethoven - Piano Trios

In the summer of 1973, Charles Rosen introduced me to the world of of Joseph Haydn's piano trios. Rosen in his classic 1971 work, The Classical Style, devotes a chapter to the piano trio. His Arnold Schoenberg, 1975 and the very large The Romantic Generation, 1995 along with Critical Entertainments, 2000 and Piano Notes: The World of the Pianist, 2002 are kept at my side and  consulted often. The Schoenberg book along with Allen Shawn's Arnold Schoenberg's Journey, 2002 are the best places for an amateur (in the non-sport, French meaning of the term) to get next to Schoenberg's wonderful music.
  My introduction, musically, was through the Beaux Arts Trio - Menahem Pressler, Isidore Cohen and Bernard Greenhouse (Pressler was D. D. Jackson's piano teacher at Indiana University). Rosen writes that the Haydn trios are primarily compositions for the solo fortepiano, solo violin and accompanying cello. On page 352 of The Classical Style, Rosen writes:

The fact that these trios are essentially solo works makes possible their greatest quality, a feeling of improvisation almost unique in Haydn's work, and, indeed, rarely found in any of the three great classic composers. Haydn was a composer who needed the piano to write music; these trios seem to give us Haydn at work. They have a spontaneous quality that the composer rarely sought elsewhere; there inspiration seems relaxed and unforced, at times almost disorganized, when compared with the quartets and symphonies.

We have complete sets of the trios by the Beaux Arts Trio, Van Swieten Trio, Haydn Trio Eisenstadt. The Van Swieten employs fortepiano and violin and cello of Haydn's time, and includes three trios with flute instead of violin. The Beaux Arts and Eisenstadt trios employ modern instruments.
  I never admired Mozart as much as Haydn and Beethoven. In my later years I have come to admire Mozart. For chamber music there are none greater than these three - Bach's pulling at my coat, as I write this. It's exciting, and enlightening, to listen to the piano trios of Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven in chronological order - Mozart says, "Here they are, wrapped tight for you"; Haydn says, "Dig this, we're jammin'"; Beethoven says, "Damn that, here's how they shall and must go!"
  I'm thinking of Eddie Jefferson and James Moody and their "Birdland Story" piece here. Nothing else for me to say.