Trout Quintet

The Trout Quintet is the popular name for the Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667, by Franz Schubert. The work 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 lineup of piano and string quartet, Schubert's piece is written for piano, violin, viola, cello and double bass. The composer Johann Nepomuk Hummel had rearranged his own Septet for the same instrumentation, and the Trout was actually written for a group of musicians coming together to play Hummel's work.

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, of Steyr in Upper Austria, a wealthy music patron and amateur cellist, who also suggested that Schubert include a set of variations on the Lied. Sets of variations on melodies from his Lieder are found in four other works by Schubert: the Death and the Maiden Quartet, the "Trockne Blumen" Variations for Flute and Piano (D. 802), the Wanderer Fantasy, and the Fantasia in C major for Violin and Piano (D. 934, on "Sei mir gegrüßt").

The rising sextuplet figure from the song's accompaniment is used as a unifying motif throughout the quintet, and related figures appear in four out of the five movements – all but the Scherzo. As in the song, the figure is usually introduced by the piano, ascending.

The quintet consists of five movements:

$\relative c' { \new PianoStaff << \new Staff { \key fis \minor \time 4/4 << { <a e' cis' a'>4\f b'4\rest b2\rest b1\rest e,2\pp_( dis e a) \slashedGrace { b16( cis16 } d2-> cis4 b) b2( cis4) b\rest s2 s s s gis2_( a4 b) } \\ { s4 s s2 s1 s2 s s s e,1 e2. s4 cis'2^( bis cis e) s2 s4 s b2^( cis4) b4\rest } >> } >> }$

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