Tonight’s programme confronts the soothingly charming universe of early Romantic music, embodied here by the lyrical tenderness of Schubert’s quintet, with a world that produced a composition which took shape amidst the horrors and confusion of the Second World War.

The uniqueness of this quintet by Franz Schubert (1797-1828) stems from its instrumental combination which supplants the standard format of piano and string quartet by detracting from the latter one violin to which is added a double-bass. This is also what ultimately accounts for the captivating tonal palette displayed by this composition written by then 22-year-old Viennese musician.  Schubert picked as the theme for the piece’s fourth, variational movement his own song, Die Forelle (“The Trout”, hence the quintet’s popular name). This approach was by no means unusual for Schubert, as melodies from his lieder (a genre where he was immensely proficient) often feature in his instrumental works. The quintet’s particularly inspiring element are its harmonies which break the ground for the future development of the language of music.

In 1943, Dmitri Shostakovich was deeply shocked by reports about the mass slaughter of Jewish inmates at the Treblinka concentration camp, which combined with profound grief over the recent loss of a close friend. Both of these shattering experiences duly projected into the music of his piano trio. Its final movement echoes a theme borrowed from Jewish folk music, a melody he in fact also used in his String Quartet No. 8 (featured in this festival’s second concert). The composer himself played piano in a recording of this work, during the 1947 edition of the Prague Spring Festival, with the Czech cellist Miloš Sádlo and the violinist David Oistrakh.

Text: Dita Hradecká