Piano quintet in A major, D. 667 ‘The Trout Quintet’ (Schubert)
Movements
i Allegro vivace (A major) ii Andante (F major) iii Scherzo: Presto (A major) iv Andantino – Allegretto (D major) v Allegro giusto (A major)
Notes
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 line-up of piano and string quartet, the Trout Quintet is written for piano, violin, viola, cello and double bass.
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 importance of the piece stems mainly from its use of an original and innovative harmonic language, rich in mediants and chromaticism, and from its timbral characteristics. The Trout Quintet has a unique sonority among chamber works for piano and strings, due mainly to the piano part, which for substantial sections of the piece concentrates on the highest register of the instrument, with both hands playing the same melodic line an octave apart (having been freed to do so by the inclusion of both cello and bass in the ensemble).
