Trout Quintet

The Trout Quintet (Forellenquintett) is the popular name for the Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667, by Franz Schubert. The piano quintet 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 ensemble of piano and string quartet, the Trout Quintet is written for piano, violin, viola, cello and double bass. The composer Johann Nepomuk Hummel had rearranged his own Quintet for the same instrumentation, and the Trout was actually written for a group of musicians coming together to play Hummel's work. Nickname 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, a wealthy music patron and amateur cellist from Steyr, Upper Austria, 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" (dried flowers) Variations for Flute and Piano (D. 802), the Wanderer Fantasy, and the Fantasia for Violin and Piano in C major (D. 934, on "Sei mir gegrüßt"). Analysis The quintet consists of five movements: