Depressed Consciousness of Schubert's Trout Quintet

Hui ZHOU

Music Department, Lishui Vocational & Technical College, Lishui, Zhejiang, 323000, China

Keywords: Trowentut Quintet, Schubert, Depressed Consciousness, String, Romanticism.

Abstract: As an important music artwork, Trout Quintet was created by Schubert based on an art song Trout. In Trout

Quintet, Schubert carried on classical and romantic music style of art. Hierarchical depressed consciousness

was made to arouse people's resonance by special movement structure design and music techniques.

1 INTRODUCTION

Romantic style of art was popular early in Europe of

the 19th century. With characteristics of fantasy and

individuality, cultural art should be used to describe

changes of feeling in the depth of heart in this

cultural movement. Romantic style of art eliminated

traditional classicalism in 18th century to a certain

extent. After musical genre of Vienna Classicism,

music was developed based on romantic style of art

in Europe of the 19th century. As a young man,

Austria Musician Schubert displayed his talent in the

overlap between 18th and 19th centuries. However,

he had a hard life of art and passed on at the age of

31. European romantic style and depressed

consciousness were developed in his different music

works including sonata, symphony, string quintet,

etc. Classical works such as Trout Quintet produced

a lasting influence after he died.

2 DEPRESSED CONSCIOUSNESS

OF SCHUBERT'S TROUT

QUINTET

Schubert was at the period that the music style

changed from European classicalism to romanticism.

Therefore, he created Trout Quintet by adding

romanticism and his own depressed consciousness to

traditional classical music. Before Trout Quintet,

Schubert created well-known art song Trout. This art

song described that trout swam happily in crystal

stream and was caught by the ruthless hunter, with

indignation and compassion. In Trout Quintet,

Schubert developed the story and depressed

consciousness based on modified tone of the art

song Trout. As an important chamber music by

Schubert, Trout Quintet presented a hard life and

unforgotten situation with beautiful melody and

clear art luster. The 4th movement of Trout Quintet,

as the partita created from the art song Trout, was

called Trout Quintet by later musicians.

3 IMAGE BUILDING OF

DEPRESSED CONSCIOUSNESS

IN LYRIC SCENE OF TROUT

QUINTET

In piano music work Trout Quintet, Schubert applied

different variation methods and instruments to

deeply adjust structure of music work Trout Quintet.

In his creation, music art was used to describe pure

trout who suffered persecution from the hunter by

combining with emotion in art song Trout. The

depressed consciousness was caused by persecution

of evil and sham. Schubert showed sympathy to the

sad destiny of trout. In fact, the tragedy of trout was

used to indicate the miserable destiny himself in

Trout Quintet, with profound implication.

3.1 Taking Happy Lyric Image as

Foreshadowing of Depressed

Consciousness

A vivid allegro introduced the first movement of

Trout Quintet with sonata form. Chord was

decomposed to form introduction by piano. After

that, piano with beautiful timbre was played to

present simple and composed main theme. After

expansion of theme, lyric secondary theme was

presented. The first movement described free

252

Zhu H.

Depressed Consciousness of Schubert’s Trout Quintet.

DOI: 10.5220/0006023502520254

In Proceedings of the Information Science and Management Engineering III (ISME 2015), pages 252-254

ISBN: 978-989-758-163-2

swimming of trout in clear stream. It foreshadowed

the cruel killing and tragic destiny of trout. This

special design reflected hierarchical depressed

consciousness and complicated changes of

emotional coloring.

In the second movement of Trout Quintet,

Schubert used andante and two-step musical form to

present soft and quiet emotional state. A northern

Austria folk song melody released inner feelings

upon the piano. Mellow viola indicated Gypsy

melody style in the second movement. Combined

with a touch of sadness, Schubert used quiet music

scene to express depressed and sad career himself

like trout.

3.2 Depressed Consciousness in

Contrast to Banter and Stretch

Image

Quick burleske was designed in the third movement

of Trout Quintet. Questions and answers between

piano and string presented humorous mood. In the

central section, Vienna dance music was used. The

special style was happy and quiet. This section was

the calm before the storm. It presented the last

chance of happiness before capture. This indicated

Schubert's sense of crisis. The fugacious happiness

foreshadowed overwhelming sadness.

In the fifth movement of Trout Quintet, Schubert

used allegro and two-step music form to build a

stretch scene. It was a contrast to depressed

consciousness. Powerful melody and gorgeous

music indicated the return of happiness. Wide and

clear mind showed that the depressed consciousness

finally disappeared like the haze in the sky.

3.3 Artistic Characteristics of Image

Scene in the Building of Depressed

Consciousness

Schubert applied relative instruments and

characteristics of quintet to form three different

images of fisherman, fish and stream, thus

visualizing the inner depressed consciousness.

Performance of different instruments presented

relations among the images. In the first and second

movements of Trout Quintet, the fisherman did not

emerge, and the trout happily swam in the stream. It

showed the harmony of trout and stream. The first

movement described the scene that the trout had fun

in the stream. Schubert emphasized presentation and

tail fin of trout in the stream by carving the raised

bead and speed of the trout. Therefore, the beautiful

swimming played a good artistic effect in reflecting

crafty of the fisherman and sadness of the trout.

4 PROMOTION OF DEPRESSED

CONSCIOUSNESS IN SHARP

MUSIC SCENE OF TROUT

QUINTET

In Schubert's work Trout Quintet, a violin was

replaced by a cello. The cello has a low and solid

timbre. With low-frequency melody, this powerful

bass could easily touch the heartstrings of audience

by presenting tragic destiny of trout and depressed

consciousness of the artist. In structure design,

Schubert used five movements instead of four in the

work. This collocation of method and structure made

Trout Quintet more splendid in chamber music.

As a partita, the fourth movement of Trout

Quintet had the most popular melody and

outstanding lyric expression. At first, the movement

described the free swimming of trout in the stream.

Then the subject of violin was replaced by the first

and second variations of piano. In the third variation,

the cello with deep melody was played to indicate

that the fisherman was approaching slowly. In the

fourth variation, strong chord was applied to lead to

bursts of sadness. It created a situation that the

fisherman cast his net into the stream and the trout

was struggling in the net. The fourth movement

showed trout's tragedy full of sadness and pain. In

addition, Schubert thought that life was a tragedy

filled with pain and struggle. Graceful subject in the

end of the fourth movement indicated that beautiful

life was out of reach after the death of trout.

5 DEPRESSED CONSCIOUSNESS

BASED ON LYRIC

HIERARCHY OF TROUT

QUINTET

In Trout Quintet, Schubert emphasized bass effect

caused by cello and piano. Lyric music scene was

built by the method. Depressed consciousness was

hierarchical in the music work.

The second violin was replaced with double bass

in traditional piano quintet. With deep timber,

double bass and cello created a better bass effect,

thus adding certain difficulty to interaction between

violin and piano. However, phrase transformation

was made more fluent by Schubert. Trout Quintet, as

Depressed Consciousness of Schubert's Trout Quintet

253

Depressed Consciousness of Schubert’s Trout Quintet

253

a chamber music work, presented conversation by

simulation of different instruments. Hierarchical

lyric music revealed different behaviors of trout

including swimming in clear stream and struggling

in the net.

In Trout Quintet, Schubert used piano for

expression by taking string as the background

instrument. A depressed description full of hierarchy

was presented by collocation of instruments.

Different instruments with different characteristics

were used to express depressed consciousness in

Schubert's heart, thus forming a graceful narrative

quintet.

6 CONCLUSIONS

Trout Quintet, created by Schubert, is a classical

music art based on melody adjustment of art song

Trout. The powerful Trout Quintet absorbs

characteristic part of Austrian Alpine folk song,

Gypsy and Hungary music instead of automatically

repeating melody of movements. Therefore,

depressed consciousness can be presented with

strong images. Trout Quintet passed through the

time and space to express sadness deep in Schubert's

heart in terms of his excellent music style. During

the period of the sharp change in Europe, Schubert

created Trout Quintet with pain caused by the long

war. Struggled in the pain, he often faced with

ignorance and contempt during his whole life. Trout

Quintet was created to reduce pain and sadness deep

in his heart. The depressed consciousness was the

sadness of Schubert himself and the time and

society.

REFERENCES

Dou Manli, 2005(08). Schubert and his a major piano

quintet trout, Instruments.

Tian Jinghua, 2003(04). Trout quintet, Music Lover.

Zhou Hongyun, 2010(01). Characteristics of schubert's art

song trout, The Science Education Article Collects.

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