Great Barrington — The Aston Magna Players have been known for over half a century as purveyors of early music performed on period instruments. And they purvey it well. But they have additional capabilities, which they will demonstrate convincingly on Sunday, May 21, when they perform an all-Schubert program at Saint James Place and celebrate violinist Daniel Stepner’s 30-year tenure as Aston Magna’s Artistic Director. Whatever they love, they play well. And they love Schubert.
First on Sunday’s program is the Allegro movement of Schubert’s String Trio in B Flat, followed by movements from Nos. 2 and 5 of “Moments Musicaux.” The “Arpeggione” Sonata follows, and, after intermission, the Quintet in A Major (“The Trout”), D. 667, the well-known piece whose fourth movement was inspired by the poem “Die Forelle” by Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart.
The String Trio in B Flat has a unique sound because of its somewhat unusual combination of instruments: violin, viola, and cello. The piece is known for its inventive use of counterpoint and for a depth and intensity of emotion that reflects the composer’s personal struggles at the time and the turmoil of his final years. At times melancholic and introspective, it is also full of hope and beauty.
“Moments Musicaux,” D. 780, is a set of six short pieces for solo piano. They are some of Schubert’s most frequently performed piano works, and Aston Magna’s David Hyun-Su Kim will play Nos. 2 (Andante ) and 5 (Allegro vivace) on fortepiano.
Schubert’s “Sonata for Arpeggione and Piano,” D. 821 was originally performed on an arpeggione or “guitarre d’amour,” a six-string bowed instrument, half guitar and half cello, which was obsolete by the time Schubert’s piece was published. Nowadays, the sonata is usually performed on cello, but it has also been arranged for viola, saxophone, and several other instruments. And when you hear it, you will know why: We can’t get enough of Schubert’s exquisite melodies and harmonies. So everyone who hears this piece (including Yo-Yo Ma) wants to play it. (Here it is performed on an actual arpeggione.)
The most distinctive characteristic of Schubert’s “Trout” quintet is the instrumentation (violin, viola, cello, double bass, piano), which was stipulated by the commissioning patron and accepted by the composer. But the patron imposed multiple stipulations, the most important of which was that Schubert’s song “Die Forelle” (“The Trout”) had to be incorporated into the piece in the form of a variation movement. That’s why this genteel piece of chamber music is named after a fish (which, as it turns out, is not what the underlying poem is ultimately about). And not just any fish, either, but a capricious one: “In a bright stream,” the poem begins, “the capricious trout darted along like an arrow.”
Not stipulated explicitly by Schubert’s commissioning patron, but well understood, was the requirement that the quintet be suitable for home chamber music gatherings. Or, as Melvin Berger in “Guide to Chamber Music” puts it, the piece was to be “suffused with the warmth of HAUS MUSICK, rather than the extroverted brilliance of a piece intended for concert hall performance.”
Schubert cheerfully obliged, composing a musician- and audience-friendly quintet that included his trout song almost verbatim. But it must be noted that the composer had earlier omitted the last stanza of Schubart’s poem, “Die Forelle,” when he set it to music in 1817. What Schubert left out was the moral of the story. Schubart had conceived his poem as a warning to young women about the dangers posed by predatory men, and the fish in his poem succumbs to capture. But Schubert’s trout escapes unscathed, unlike the composer himself, who contracted syphilis at age 25 and died at age 31.
Hear the Aston Magna Players perform an all-Schubert program Sunday, May 21, 3 p.m., at Saint James Place. They will perform the same program Saturday, May 20, 3 p.m., at The Allen Center, 35 Webster Street, Newton, MA. Tickets are available here.
