Franz Schubert – Quintet, Harmonia Mundi, US,1973

In 1819 Franz Schubert undertook, along with his friend and famous baritone at the Viennese court opera, Michael Vogl, a journey to Steyr. Posterity is indebted to this journey for one of the most beautiful works of chamber music: the piano quintet in A major, op. 114. Silvester Paumgartner, music friend and patron, who especially loved Vogl’s interpretation of the Lied “The Trout”, which had been written four years previous, found his heart’s desire fulfilled with this composition in that Schubert had fashioned the Lied into six variations in the fourth movement and then dedicated the entire opus to Paumgartner. Schubert was later to employ often this technique of using Lieder for variation purposes. Most probably he wanted to illustrate and interpret the respective Lieder again from a different side. We need only recall the string quartet “Death and the Maiden” or the variations for flute, “All you little Flowers”. Schubert’s predominantly serious side is, for the most part, well-known. Such a melancholy is found in various Lieder of the “Winter’s Journey”, in his so-called “Tragic Symphony” or in his “Stabat mater”. Nevertheless, the “Trout Quintet” is far from such seriousness. Everything that we love in Schubert has found expression here in purest form: the lovable Viennese charm and the original chamber musician. This musical image of a streaming joy of living in tone and melody is, as it were, the echo of those happy days which he passed in Steyr. He was successful in incorporating into his instrumental mode of expression those for him inseparable elements of vocal lyricism, to the extent that they combined organically and, consequently, that a new unity was established. The work was removed from the realm of “house music” through inclusion of the double bass, which is but infrequently employed in chamber music, but it won and retained nonetheless its popularity.

On the surface, the structure of the movements provides only the framework in which the melodic occurrences take place. On closer examination, however, one sees that this approach does injustice to the work, that the sonata-form as a dominant force is distinguishable despite all wealth and prominence of melody. This holds true even where a fifth movement is inserted between the Scherzo and Finale — which represents in any case an exception. The theme of the first movement, which enters after the A major arpeggio in the piano has glided through two octaves, remains an unfinished product. The full pregnance is reached only in measure 25, and the theme rounds itself out into a well-proportioned period — a large-scale, genuine sonata development. A spirited dialogue between violin and ’cello precedes the second theme. Interesting here is the change of key. The necessity of avoiding the danger of monotony by means of key-change can be seen in Beethoven’s music already, for example in the initial movement of the seventh symphony. But comparison reveals that Beethoven was constantly concerned with a functional reason for this change, whereas Schubert was interested singularly in the effect of tone colour. While the peculiarity of Schubert’s use of harmony in the first movement is noticeable only in certain details, the whole design of the following Andante bears witness to a totally new harmonic consciousness. The structure possesses the fullest simplicity. The movement is divided into two parts which correspond to one another exactly; each part contains the same three themes, whose keys alone change. Schubert evidently was so sensitive to different tone colours that he held possible the existence of two identical parts side by side. The Scherzo, in spite of its simplicity, is a work of extraordinary thematic art. The thematic combination with the Trio is also interesting, for this section is constructed on a theme which emerges already in the ninth measure of the Scherzo and which is raised to even greater pregnance later. Thereupon follow in the form of an inserted movement the famous variations from which the work has its name. First of all the strings play the theme as a simple four-voice phrase; then the instruments assume, one after the other, the melodic lead — first piano, followed by the viola and then the ’cello together with double bass. The fourth variation makes the melody subordinate to harmonic happenings, while the fifth develops in minor key a completely new tune from the theme.

Then the theme follows as epilogue: it has the same form as in the Lied, bring here a dialogue between violin and ’cello. At this point the gay sextolet appears which is so characteristic in the accompaniment of the Lied. The Finale, just like the Andante, is also divided into two equal parts. It is a closing movement of great joy and of structural assuredness which shows the level of Schubert’s mastery at that time.

This new interpretation represents a recording with original instruments: a wonderful grand piano by Conrad Graf; to that, valuable old string instruments — among them a Guarneri del Gesù — which are in their tone especially transparent and rich in nuance because of the catgut strings. A poem has been reached here in which the search for original sounds combines marvellously with the endeavour after the highest artistic expression. There is a way to discover Romantic music anew!