Classical Corner: Schubert's "Trout" Quintet

Now that the Tour de France is over I don't have much to write about until December when many of the year's best movies will come out (I would have written a review of Inception but by now it's well overdue).  I'm working on resuming my write-ups for my Top 100 movies of all time list but am feeling a little uninspired as far as that goes.  So here's a new idea for a blog series: Classical Corner.  It won't be anything too snobby or pretentious, just a little bit of classical music from trusty old YouTube, along with some of my thoughts about the piece at hand.

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Today's piece is the 4th movement of Franz Schubert's "Trout" Quintet (formally called Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667).  This movement is a theme and variations on a song called "The Trout" previously written by Schubert - hence the piece's nickname.

Click to play: "Trout" Quintet, 4th mvt. - Franz Schubert

The movement begins with a very simple tune (i.e. the theme) played by the violin before developing into five (arguably six) variations.  The first three are fairly straightforward, seeing the melody flow from the piano (Var. I) to the viola (Var. II) to the cello and bass (Var. III), with an accompaniment that flows like water and progressively increases in presence.  Var. IV is where things start to switch up a bit, with percussive and stormy chords in the minor key that settle into a calm kind of aftermath.  Var. V has some beautiful cello melody and interesting modulations, and we finally get to see Schubert really developing the melody.  The final segment is labeled "Allegretto" as opposed to "Var. VI," and features the melody passed back and forth between the violin and cello in playful fashion.

Artist's rendition of the exact trout that inspired this piece

This movement is probably the most famous of the quintet and the easiest to follow, but the rest of the quintet is also excellent and features some great development that contrasts with the theme and variation format used in this movement.  In my opinion, the "Trout" Quintet is one of the greatest pieces of music out there, and this comes from someone who is not overly crazy about either chamber music or Schubert.  I particularly like the unorthodox instrumentation of the quintet.  Whereas a typical piano quintet uses basically a string quartet plus a piano (i.e. two violins, a viola, a cello, and a piano), this work replaces the second violin with a bass.  This unique instrumentation has a great sonority and allows for a little more compositional freedom in my opinion, and I find it surprising that this instrumentation never really became more popular.

Franz Schubert and his immense hair - an indication of his immense genius

Most obviously, the bass can reach those notes lower than the cello's range.  While a piano can also hit these notes, the bass has a nicer timbre and definitely a better blend with the group at that low range, as in my opinion the piano sometime sounds alien when playing those low notes along with a string quartet.  Accordingly, because the piano does not need to be hitting those low notes, Schubert uses it in the upper register for most of the quintet, where it has a very clear tone that blends extremely well with the group.  Sadly for the bassist, they are largely reserved to the accompaniment role that is typically played by the cello (but it's a bass - what can you expect).  But this results in a much greater melodic freedom in the cello part, which is awesome because the cello sounds really beautiful in its upper register.

Overall the quintet is characterized by a "full" sound (which I am very much a sucker for) and an immense melodic clarity among all five instruments.  If you liked the above clip, definitely check out the rest of the piece (it's five movements total), and stay tuned for the next installment of Classical Corner!