Podcast Program No. 46
Not Exactly What I Expected (47.7 MB)
Works for string quartet and piano quintet played by the Amedeo Modigliani Quartet and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

• Webern: Langsamer Satz
• Schubert: Quintet in A Major for piano, violin, viola, cello and bass, Op. 114, “Trout”

This week, we’re listening to a couple pieces that challenge expectations a little. Some of us start to get a little anxious when we hear those second Viennese school names—Schoenberg, Berg, Webern. But this Webern quartet, an early work written in the first blush of love, is much more late Romantic than early modern. It gets chromatic, but still—if you didn’t already know the piece, you’d be hard-pressed to identify it as Webern. Next we’ll hear Schubert’s “Trout” quintet, one of the composer’s best-known chamber music works that has a pretty unique point of inspiration. After a performance of his charming song “Die Forelle” about the battle between a fisherman and a trout, Schubert was approached by a business man and amateur cellist who commissioned him to write a quintet based on the song. The fact that Schubert could translate his song from a short narrative piece about a trout fisherman into a full-blown chamber music work speaks to the musical strength of his vocal compositions, and his standing as one of the true revolutionaries of lieder.