What the name of the poem that inspired Schubert to write this quintet? Here's the story behind the composition of the "Trout" Quintet:
In the Spring of 1819 Schubert was offered a commission by an amateur cellist by the name of Sylvester Paumgartner. This wealthy music lover specified that it be a quintet for a somewhat unusual combination of instruments: Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello and Stringed Bass (this was because another Viennese composer, Hummel, had written a quintet employing these instruments several years earlier, and Paumgartner greatly enjoyed this piece). The second stipulation was that the new quintet would include a theme-and-variations movement based on a lied (song) of Schubert's that Paumgartner had heard and apparently loved: "Die Forelle" ("The Trout"), which Schubert had written in 1817.
Living at the edge of poverty and very thankful for this commission, Schubert went right to work, and completed the piece a few months later. It was first performed at a private chamber music gathering, with Paumgartner himself reportedly making a "valiant attempt" at playing the cello part.
So, it wasn't the case that a poem inspired Schubert to write this quintet--rather, the title derives from the origins of its fourth movement, the melody from the lied "Die Forelle" that Schubert himself had previously written. Inspired by "Die Forelle", a poem by Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart, a German poet (1739 - 1791):
http://www.tomoko-yamamoto.com/multimedi...
The Quintet is known as "The Trout" because the 4th movement is a set of variations based on an earlier Lied (song) by Franz Schubert titled "Die Forelle" (The Trout), a setting of Christian Schubart's poem.
(and no one has been misled!)
Musician, composer, teacher. Don't be misled! Schubert wasn't inspired to write the Quintet by the poem - he wrote a SONG called 'Die Forelle' (The Trout), which was a setting of the poem mentioned above and he then used the theme of this song as the basis of a set of variations in one of the movements of the quintet. |
