Haydn’s Piano Trio Op. 40 was completed during the final few weeks of Haydn's second and last trip to London in 1795. The prime inspiration for Smetana’s only Piano Trio was personal tragedy. In 1854, the Smetanas lost one daughter to tuberculosis and just a year later, their eldest daughter died from scarlet fever. Smetana’s reaction to the loss was to throw himself into his music, acknowledging the inspiration of the Trio in a letter: ‘The loss of my eldest daughter, that extraordinarily gifted child, inspired me to write the Trio in G minor in 1855.'