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SCHUBERT The“Trout” Quintet Adagio & Rondo concertante for piano and strings Members of the piano • • • Adrian Beers double bass Can Be Filed Under: Schubert/

Schubert’s fondness for octaves, with glittering scales and runs high up on the keyboard, and his unerring sense of the color of the instrument’s different registers. ADAGIO AND RONDO CONCERTANTE IN F MAJOR, D.487 ^ (Side Two, band 3 — 13' 27") SCHUBERT The Adagio and Rondo for piano, violin, viola and cello was composed in October 1816, probably for Hein¬ The ^^Trout” Quintet rich Grob, an amateur cellist (though the cello part is not in any way spectacular). In style the work is more Adagio and Rondo concertante for piano and strings like a concerto movement for piano and strings than a ■■ "v piano quartet,^nd Schubert would certainly have been the last person to object to the cello part being rein¬ Members of the Melos Ensemble forced if—as in this recording—a HoubJeT^ happened Lamar Crowson (piano) • Emanuel Hurwitz (violin) to be present; iT niay well have been played in this way together with the “Trout” Quintet at Steyr Cecil Aronowitz (viola) • Terence Weil (cello) • Adrian Beers (double bass) during the happy summer of 1819.^areful listeners will also observe that some very slight adjustments have been made to Schubert’s own “orchestration!’ but again one QUINTET IN A MAJOR, OP. 114, D.667 ceivably lovely!’ and it has often been remarked that the feels sure that the composer could only have regarded (‘‘TROUT’O [35'47"] Quintet owes its clear, sunlit charm to the surroundings these as an improvement. The Adagio is the most Schu- in which it was composed: indeed every movement — I. Allegro vivace [Side One, hand 1—9' 18") bertian part of the work. The'Rondd\o which it serves except perhaps the third — seems to breathe the fresh¬ as a preface is not in fact a rondo at all but a sonata II. Andante 2 — 7' ness of summer air in the Austrian Alps. Like the movement; the cut of its themes is inescapably III. Scherzo (Presto) 8c Trio (band 3—4' 25") of 1824 and the piano trios of 1827, the Quintet was in¬ Mozartian but their development has a distinct taste oL IV. Tema (Andantino) — Variations 1-5 — Allegretto tended for private performance and the enjoyment of Hummel and Weber, if not the full flavor of the Schu- a small circle of friends, and, like them, it does not (8ide Two, band 1 — 7' 55") ben we know and love. Robin Golding necessarily demand from the listener a more strenuous V. Finale (Allegro giusto) (band 2 — 6' 51") effort than is required for the enjoyment of a Mozart THE MELOS ENSEMBLE of , formed in 1951, takes its Schubert’s only piano quintet was written during a divertimento (though of course this is not to say that name from the Greek word rnelos meaning tune or melody. Exten¬ walking holiday in Upper Austria in the summer of it will not repay closer attention). sively recorded in Europe the Ensemble has gained a distinguished 1819, when he was twenty-two. He had managed to save The Allegro vivace is dominated by the upward ar¬ reputation among the world’s chamber music groups. Its engage¬ up a little money during the preceding months, and so, peggio in triplets with which the piano opens the move¬ ments include appearances at the festivals at Edinburgh, Chelten¬ ham, Leeds, York, Aldeburgh, Venice, Warsaw and Holland as well early in July, he set out from Vienna with his friend ment, and which forms an essential part of the first sub¬ as concert tours in Great Britain, the European Continent, and the Michael Vogl, the great baritone for whom he wrote ject. The theme is discussed at characteristic Schuber- LFnited States. Consisting of nine players in all — clarinet, bassoon, many of his songs. Their first call was at Vogl’s birth¬ tian length. The second subject, in E, is in two parts: a horn, bass, piano and a — the Melos Ensemble’s rep¬ place, Steyr, a town not far from Linz. In spite of thun¬ lyrical duet for cello and violin, leading to a lilting tune ertoire includes music written for trios, quintets, and octets. derstorms during the first days of the visit, which put a on the piano. The development is based on the first Members of the Ensemble heard on this recording are as follows: stop to country walks, Schubert did not find life there theme, with the triplets more in evidence than ever. LAMAR CROWSON, American by birth, was a student of Arthur Benjamin at the Royal College and won many awards including dull. “At the house where I lodge there are eight girls, The F mdi]or Andante is in two sections, the second of the Chappell Gold Medal and the Harriet Cohen International nearly all pretty^’ he wrote to his brother Ferdinand. which is a repetition (with much variation of key and Award. Since last January a Professor at the University of Cape “Plenty to do, you see!’ texture) of the first. Each section has three distinct parts Town, he returns frequently to play with the Melos Ensemble in Musical evenings at Steyr were spent in the house of — a rhythmic theme in octaves on the piano (first in F, England. Silvester Paumgartner, a hospitable mining director and later in A flat); a wistful tune for viola and cello (first in EMANUEL HURWITZ, the violinist, is a prominent figure in an amateur cellist who, according to Albert Stadler, F sharp minor, later in A minor), and another rhythmic London musical circles, the leader of the English Chamber Orches¬ asked Schubert to write a quintet for the same instru¬ piano theme (first in D, later in F). The third movement tra and a distinguished soloist and chamber music player. ments as those featured in Hummel’s Quintet for*piano, is a jaunty Scherzo, full of sudden accents and dynamic CECIL ARONOWITZ, one of the leading viola players of Europe, is Professor of Viola and Chamber Music at the Royal College of violin, viola, cello and double bass, which had been changes, enclosing a Trio (in D, but with a delightful Music. He is a well known soloist and member of many chamber published a year or two earlier. If this is untrue, the shift to B flat in its second half) which is virtually a dia¬ music groups. only way to explain the unusual instrumentation of logue between strings and piano. TERENCE WEIL, the cellist, winner of many prizes at the Royal Schubert’s piece is to suppose that just such a combina¬ The five variations of which the Forelle theme — or Academy of Music, is a specialist in chamber music and has been tion happened to be available at the time. In the free- rather, a variant of it — are the subject in the fourth the principal cellist with London’s major orchestras. and-easy atmosphere of domestic music-making among movement, never obscure the outline of the tune; the ADRIAN BEERS, a Scot, is Professor of the Double Bass at the Schubert’s family and frijen4s,-'theue~wouiT-ha;v^e^^b first two are in D, the third (and most adventurous) in . He is at present principal bass of the New and of the English Chamber Orchestra. nothingmnJikely-abbur-thtsrPaumgartner may also have^- D minor, the fourth in B flat. Finally the theme reap¬ fond of Schubert’s song Die Forelle (“The Trout’’), pears in m Allegretto coda, with the rippling triplet ac- T).550, composed in 1817, which forms the basis of the con|paniment of the song itself. The finale is ostensibly ALSO BY MEMBERS OF THE MELOS ENSEMBLE variations in the fourth movement and which gives the 3nata form, but with the double bar coming imme- ON ANGEL RECORDS Quintet its nickname. iiately before the recapitulation and after such develop¬ With (clarinet) S indicates Stereo me story has it that SchXlbEtTTiTOte~out the parts ment as there is. The principal theme, whose gypsy tang BRAHMs: Quintet in B minor, for Clarinet and Strings, Op. 115; from his head, without first making a score, and that at reminds us that Schubert paid a visit to Hungary in reger: Scherzo from the Quintet in A, for Clarinet and Strings, the first performance he played the piano part from 1818, is in sharp contrast with the insouciant lilt of the Op. 146. S-36280 memory, only writing it down later. He wrote to Ferdi¬ second subject. Throughout the Quintet (again, except MOZART: Quintet in A, for Clarinet and Strings, K.581; Trio in E nand that the countryside around Steyr was “incon¬ perhaps for the Scherzo), the piano writing exhibits flat, for Clarinet, Viola and Piano, K.498. S-36241

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number R 67-3713 applies to this recording.

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