Franz Schubert, The Trout. The Greatest Love and The Greatest Sorrow
When a young 22 year old Schubert composed this quintet in 1819, labelled “The Trout”, little did he know it wouldn’t be published until 1829, a year after his death, nor that it would become a historic reference of chamber music.
The piece receives its name “The Trout” because the fourth movement is a set of variations on Schubert’s earlier Lied “Die Forelle“. The piece breaks the typical quintet lineup of piano and a string quartet to replace it with a most unusual piano, violin, viola, cello and double bass.
On the 30th of August 1969, some of the most prominent young musicians of the time came together in London for a historic recording of the Trout Quintet, they were Jacqueline Du Pré (Cello), Barenboim (piano, married to Du Pré at the time), Itzhak Perlman (Violin), Pinchas Zukerman (viola) and Zubin Mehta (double bass) at the Queen Elizabeth Hall.
This performance would be recorded and released in a documentary called “Franz Schubert: The Greatest Love and the Greatest Sorrow; The Trout”
You can buy a VHS version here:Franz Schubert: The Greatest Love and the Greatest Sorrow; The Trout [VHS]
Please find the recording on the performance below:
