Schubert — Die Forelle (The Trout), Op. 32
This wonderful Schubert piece is one of the best-known classical compositions and one that many people may remember from school. This year marks exactly 205 years since Schubert wrote down the song that later provided the basis for the Trout Quintet two years afterwards. It has an exceptionally beautiful and catchy melody, and the chord progression beneath it is extraordinarily inventive. It contains only a handful of chords — C major, G major, G7, D7 and F major — yet it is constructed so brilliantly that it sounds full of movement and surprise, and by the penultimate line we can hardly wait for that F major to arrive. Then the line repeats, heightening the magic of the F major even further.
It has already been more than a month since I published a call for participantsin which I asked adventurous ukulele players to send me videos without revealing what we would be playing. The recordings began arriving one after another, although one participant, Orsi, was in on the secret and I was expecting several video tracks from her. A few days ago I was finally able to record my own parts as well and edit everything together. I enjoyed every minute of the cutting and sound work, and it was wonderful to watch the finished result — which I think turned out really well — take shape in front of me.
The submitted recordings hardly needed any adjustment at all. Everyone's entrance fits the composition perfectly, and at the end everyone leaves in a similarly neat way . There are even little jokes that emerged completely unexpectedly during editing: Nóri, in the middle, happens to look to her right — left on the screen — at exactly the moment I appear beside her. Or was that on her left? . It looks as though she had been waiting for me. Of course we had not planned it, and she did not even know where her video, in which she plays with her little daughter Anka, would appear. You could say the team is well-established by now, because everyone has appeared in previous videos. Special thanks to all of you, dear participants, for your persistence and enthusiasm. I would particularly like to highlight Orsi — and give her a gigantic thank-you — because her singing with ukulele accompaniment and her flute playing are clear, sincere and sensational; I could keep listing adjectives, but in one word: professional. It is an honour for me that a musician of this standard took part in the “Trout project” — and in all of our previousplay-together projectsas well. If you would like to hear more of her excellent ukulele-and-vocal arrangements, take a look at Orsi's YouTube channel (and of course subscribe). I hope she uploads more and more videos.
I will not say any more. If you have not yet clicked the Trout video, do it now — and listen to this beautiful song with all my love.
