ÿþ<html> <head> <title>Forest Hill Chamber Music Festival 2004</title> <style> a:link {color:888888;text-decoration: none} a:active {color:888888;text-decoration: none} a:visited {color:888888;text-decoration: none} a:hover {color:000000;text-decoration: none} </style> </head> <body bgColor=ffffff topmargin=15 leftmargin=0 text=555555 link=000000 alink=000000 vlink=000000> <center> <a href="index.html"><img src="title01w.gif" border=0></a><BR> <BR><font size=3> { <a href="p1.html">6/11</a> &nbsp; <a href="p2.html">6/12</a> &nbsp; <a href="p3.html">6/13</a> &nbsp; <a href="p4.html">6/13</a> } &nbsp; { <a href="artists.html">artists</a> } &nbsp; { <a href="notes.html">program notes</a> } &nbsp; { <a href="photos.html">photos</a> } &nbsp; { <a href="contact.html">tickets</a> } &nbsp; { <a href="ack.html">acknowledgements</a> } &nbsp; { <a href="intro.html">about</a> } <BR><BR><BR> <table border=0 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0> <TR> <Td align=right valign=top> <table border=0 cellpadding=15 cellspacing=0><TR><TD align=right> <a href="n01-bach.html">Johann Sebastian Bach </a><BR> <a href="n02-beet.html">Ludwig van Beethoven </a><BR> <a href="n03-berg.html">Alban Maria Johannes Berg </a><BR> <a href="n14-druk.html">Jacob Raphael Druckman </a><BR> <a href="n04-dvor.html">Antonín DvoYák </a><BR> <a href="n05-hind.html">Paul Hindemith </a><BR> <a href="n06-mech.html">Kirke Mechem</a><BR> <a href="n07-mess.html">Olivier Messiaen</a><BR> <a href="n08-moza.html">Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart </a><BR> <a href="n09-rohde.html">Kurt Rohde</a><BR> <a href="n10-ss.html">Charles Camille Saint-Saëns </a><BR> <a href="n11-scho.html">Arnold Schönberg </a><BR> <a href="n12-schub.html">Franz Peter Schubert </a><BR> <a href="n13-schum.html">Robert Schumann</a><BR> </td></tr></table> </td> <TD valign=top> <img src="black.gif" width=1 height=310><BR> </td> <TD valign=top width=500> <Table border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=15><TR><TD> <font size=5><center><b>Franz Peter Schubert</b><font size=2><br> <i>b. 1797 Vienna, Austria; d. 1828 Vienna, Austria</i></center><font size=3><br><br> <b>Quintet in A Major for Pianoforte, Violin, Viola, Violoncello, and Contrabass,  The Trout, Op. 114 (D. 667) (1819) </b><br> <br> Of the great composers associated with Vienna in his time  the others being Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven  Schubert was the only one born in that city and the only one who failed to achieve international fame in his lifetime. His birthplace is now a museum, but the house where he died has become a Volkswagen repair shop. <br><br> I have come into the world for no purpose but to compose. <br><br>Everything we know about Schubert suggests that he was a quiet and private man. Although a skilled pianist and violinist, he was neither a virtuoso performer nor a flamboyant conductor who could promote his own work on the public stage. He spent most of his days methodically writing music straight from his head, since he never owned a piano to help with composition. <br><br>At his death, only 100 or so of his approximately 1,000 works had been published  mostly songs (he wrote over 600), piano duets, and collections of dances, which were popular and thus easier to sell. Few chamber works were published, and no symphonies. <br><br>Schubert s Piano Quintet, along with his Fifth Symphony, is considered the beginning of his full maturity as a composer, written during a happy time in his early twenties. He wrote:  I started working on this quintet when I was taking a vacation at Steyr, which is about 145 km west of Vienna. It s really beautiful there. I went there with my friend Mr. Vogl, who really was a good friend of mine and a frequent participant and audience member at the Hausmusik concerts. <br><br> Anyway, the quintet has been commissioned by Mr. Sylvester Paumgartner, a prominent music patron and cellist in the town of Steyr. I especially like the variation movement. I will admit that I was inspired by the beautiful countryside of Steyr, and by watching the water in the streams of that lovely countryside. I think that when it is finished you will like it a lot. <br><br>A very prominent singer in Vienna, Johann Michael Vogl was an early friend, patron, and promoter of Schubert s music. Together they started the  Schubertiads, those now famous evenings of friends and music, of which this Forest Hill concert series is quite reminiscent. <br><br>According to Paumgartner s wishes, the quintet was to be composed along the same structural lines and with the same instrumentation as Johann Nepomuk Hummel s Quintet, Op. 74, which was still new at the time and unusual in its scoring for piano, violin, viola, cello, and double bass. The  variation movement is the fourth of five, into which Schubert s earlier song,  Die Forelle (The Trout), is developed, also at the request of Paumgartner. <br><br>Despite the happy burbling of a brook in the music, the text of the song, from a poem by Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart (1739 1791), describes an unlucky trout tricked into being hooked by an angler who has muddied the water to camouflage his lure. The final verse, not set by Schubert, provides the moral of the poem in warning that unwary young girls are also easily snared by wily seducers. <br> </td></tr></table> </td> </tr> </table> </body></html>