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The Trout Quintet (Forellenquintett) is the popular name for the Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667, by Franz Schubert. The piano quintet was composed in 1819, when he was 22 years old; it was not published, however, until 1829, a year after his death.

Rather than the usual piano quintet ensemble of piano and string quartet, the Trout Quintet is written for piano, violin, viola, cello and double bass.

According to Schubert's friend Albert Stadler, it was modelled on an arrangement of Johann Nepomuk Hummel's then-popular Septet in D Minor for Flute, Oboe, Horn, Viola, Cello, Bass and Piano, Op. 74. That arrangement, using the same, somewhat unusual instrumentation chosen by Schubert, had been published in Vienna in about 1817, only a few years before the composition of the Trout Quintet. It may also have been influenced by Hummel's Quintet in E flat minor, Op. 87 .

Nickname

The piece is known as the Trout because the fourth movement is a set of variations on Schubert's earlier Lied "Die Forelle" ("The Trout"). The quintet was written for Sylvester Paumgartner, a wealthy music patron and amateur cellist from Steyr, Upper Austria, who also suggested that Schubert include a set of variations on the Lied. the variations do not transform the original theme into new thematic material; rather, they concentrate on melodic decoration and changes of mood. In each of the first few variations, the main theme is played by a different instrument or group. In the fifth variation, Schubert begins in the flat submediant (B major), and creates a series of modulations eventually leading back to the movement's main key, at the beginning of the final sixth variation.

A similar process is heard in three of Schubert's later compositions: the Octet in F major, D. 803 (fourth movement); the Piano Sonata in A minor, D. 845 (second movement); and the Impromptu in B major, D. 935 No. 3. The concluding variation is similar to the original Lied, sharing the same characteristic accompaniment in the piano.

V. Allegro giusto

The Finale is in two symmetrical sections, like the second movement. However, the movement differs from the second movement in the absence of unusual chromaticism, and in the second section being an exact transposition of the first (except for some changes of octave register). A repeat sign is written for the first section: if one adheres meticulously to the score, the movement consists of three lengthy, almost identical repeats of the same musical material. Performers sometimes choose to omit the repeat of the first section when playing.

Although this movement lacks the chromaticism of the second movement, its own harmonic design is also innovative: the first section ends in D major, the subdominant. This is contradictory to the aesthetics of the Classical musical style, in which the first major harmonic event in a musical piece or movement, is the shift from tonic to dominant (or, more rarely, to mediant or submediant&nbsp;– but never to the subdominant).

Musical significance

Compared to other major chamber works by Schubert, such as the last three string quartets and the string quintet, the Trout Quintet is a leisurely work, characterized by lower structural coherence, especially in its outer movements and the Andante. These movements contain unusually long repetitions of previously stated material, sometimes transposed, with little or no structural reworking, aimed at generating an overall unified dramatic design ("mechanical" in Martin Chusid's words and is characteristic of Schubert's works for piano four-hands,

The quintet forms the basis of Christopher Nupen's 1969 film The Trout, in which Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Jacqueline du Pré, Daniel Barenboim and Zubin Mehta perform it at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London.

Other uses

A portion of the Trout Quintets fifth movement, performed by the Nash Ensemble, is used as the theme music for the BBC television comedy Waiting for God. The third movement performed by the Nash Ensemble is also used in the show.

Samsung washing machines and clothes dryers play an arrangement of the first portion of the fourth movement upon finishing a spin cycle.

References

Sources

Further reading

  • Recording of full quintet by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in MP3 format
  • , at Gresham College, 2013; Christopher Hogwood, performers from the Royal Academy of Music