It’s trout for Thanksgiving on this week’s “Music from Marlboro.”
Franz Schubert was 22 years-old when he completed his “Trout” Quintet. That was in 1819. The work wasn’t published until 1829, the year after his death.
Formally identified as the Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667, the piece was conceived for the novel combination of piano, violin, viola, cello, and double bass (bass like the instrument, not the fish). Schubert tailored his quintet for a gathering of musicians who were to perform Johann Nepomuk Hummel’s Septet, which Hummel had arranged for the same instrumentation. I know, it’s very disappointing that the work is not played on five fishes.
The quintet gets its nickname from the fourth movement (of five), a set of variations on Schubert’s lied, “Die Forelle,” or “The Trout.” The music is generally lighthearted and leisurely, with perhaps a few feints toward melancholy in the second movement Andante. But Schubert wouldn’t be Schubert without a dash of melancholy, and neither would Thanksgiving. Overall, the quintet is just the sort of thing to calm your nerves, even as the ear is engaged by its striking harmonies and catchy melodies.
We’ll hear a performance recorded at Marlboro in 1967, with pianist Rudolf Serkin, violinist Jaime Laredo, violist Philipp Naegele, cellist Leslie Parnas, and bassist Julius Levine.
Then we’ll round out the hour with some part-songs, composed around 1801, by Franz Joseph Haydn, including “Abendlied zu Gott” (“Evening Song to God”), after a text by Christian Fürchtegott Gellert:
Lord, You who have given me life
Up until this very day,
Child-like, I pray to You.
I am much too unworthy of the faithfulness that I sing of,
And that You grant me today.
Four vocalists – soprano Claudia Visca, mezzo-soprano Constance Fee, tenor Michael Sylvester, and bass John Paul White – join Luis Batlle at the piano, at the 1976 Marlboro Music Festival.
It sure beats romaine lettuce. Schubert’s “Trout” will buoy your spirits, even as you wade through traffic, on this Thanksgiving eve.
Give thanks for musical sustenance on “Music from Marlboro,” this Wednesday evening at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
Marlboro School of Music and Festival: Official Page