Music, Medicine and Trout

Oil painting of Franz Schubert
by Wilhelm August Rieder (1875)

Lunch time talk with my business partner who was a doctor for many years drifted into our founder Sir Stamford Raffles suffered from syphilis which is a STD and he also kept a Chinese mistress in Singapore.

The composer of "The Trout" Franz Peter Schubert in my previous article on Omega-3 died a bachelor of syphilis. Some music historian attribute his death to typhoid perhaps to remove the shame attached.

For those who are familiar with classical music, please skip the next two paragraphs as I explain the nomenclature.

Why label great classical works with monolithic and unimaginative titles? Having a meaningful name "The Trout" is a rare honour. The technically correct name is Piano Quintet in A major D.667 and lets unravel the actual name. Piano Quintet means a Piano accompanied by a String Quartet. Quintet is a root word for 5 and therefore 5 performers. A string quartet; quartet meaning 4; normally consists of 2 Violins, Viola and Cello but Schubert had one of the two violins substitued with a double bass in this case. The line up would be Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass. The D.667 is  a reference number and most commonly used as Opus except for some composers like Schubert and Bach. A WvO or Posth means no reference attached or done posthumously after the death of the composer.

The next piece to unravel are the movements. Most pieces come in 3 or 4 movements. The transition from one movement to another can be punctuated with a pause or can be stringed together with no pause. Have attended concerts where some audience clap inappropriately between movements. If unsure, follow the crowd in your next visit to a concert. The label attached to each movement normally indicates the speed, mood and other special instructions. The Trout has 5 movements in our piece are I Allegro vivace, II Andante, III Schrezo: Prestissimo, IV Andantino - Allegretto, V Allegro guisto. Most of these words are Latin in origin. Some popular musicians attach titles like Andante Cantabile without reference the composer and title which shout of their possible lack of knowledge in classical music.

The maxim dead artists are worth or cherish more after their death hold true in this piece. The piece was written when he was 22 years old but was only published 10 years later or one year after his death. The piece was commissioned by a weathy music lover Sylvester Paumgartner. In current context, it means a for profit work where the artists gets funding ( and directions ) from the customer.

Jeremy Siepmann have this to say about this work "..irresistible piece of such infectious good humour....(how a) tightly structured quartet conjure up such a crystal clear aquatic picture" which explains the special name of The Trout. Perhaps you are more more ready to dive into the entire 5 movements now and enjoy it in the process.

Trout like most oily fish is a good source of Omega-3 as opposed to whitefish. Oily fish have oil in many parts of their body and contain an avergae of 30% more oil than whitefish which only have oil in their liver.

Lastly, for the more adventerous, these are highly recommended recordings gleaned from Gramophone Classical Music Guide.

1. James Levine, Gerhard Hetzel, Wolfram Christ, Georg Faust, Alois Posch. DG 431 783-2GH DDD
2. Christian Zacharias, Leipzig Quartet (Andreas Seidel, Ivo Bauer, Matthias Moosdorf ) Christian Ockert. MDG 307 0625-1 DDD

Peter Lye aka lkypeter
lkypeter@gmail.com Safe Harbor. Please note that information contained in these pages are of a personal nature and does not necessarily reflect that of any companies, organizations or individuals. In addition, some of these opinions are of a forward looking nature. Lastly the facts and opinions contained in these pages might not have been verified for correctness, so please use with caution. Happy Reading. Peter Lye (c) Peter Lye 2014

Photos: Wikipedia(r)Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License