Trout Quintet
Encyclopedia : T : TR : TRO : Trout Quintet
The Trout Quintet is the popular name for the piano quintet in A major by Franz Schubert. In Otto Erich Deutsch's catalogue of Schubert's works, it is D. 667.
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). Apart from being variations on the melody of that lied, the last variation also renders the characteristic musical motif picturing the "trout" appearing and disappearing in the water, which Schubert had used in the piano accompaniment of the lied.
Rather than the usual piano quintet lineup of piano and string quartet, Schubert's piece is written for piano, violin, viola, cello and double bass. The composer Johann Nepomuk Hummel has a quintet with the same instrumentation, and the Trout was actually written for a group of musicians coming together to play Hummel's work.
Dating from 1819, it is the only piano quintet he wrote.
The work is in five movements:
- Allegro vivace - as is normal in multi-movement works of the time, this is in sonata form, however he alters it slightly by beginning the recapitulation on the subdominant, making any modulatory changes in the transition to the second theme unnecessary.
- Andante
- Scherzo: Presto
- Andantino - Allegretto - the variations on "Die Forelle"
- Allegro giusto
The British television sitcom Waiting for God used the opening of the Trout Quintet’s fifth movement as its theme music.
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.