BMP Teaching Artist Adam Goldberg shares a fun piece of music to listen to that he sees as an important part of the double bass repertoire.
“Franz Schubert is one of my favorite composers of the 19th century. Along with many others like Beethoven, he helped move music out of the classical era and into the romantic, of which much of the music we continue to listen to today was heavily influenced by. Schubert wrote hundreds of songs (called ‘lieder’), several symphonies, and dozens of chamber works during his short career, but the ‘Trout’ Quintet stands out as one of the few pieces of chamber music to ever include double bass in its instrumentation. The title ‘Trout’ comes from one of his earlier songs of the same name (‘Die Forelle’) and includes music from that song in the fourth movement of the quintet. Written for violin, viola, cello, double bass, and piano, the quintet shows how powerful, melodic, and virtuosic the bass can be when expertly written as both a supportive and soloistic force of chamber music.”
The fourth movement of Schubert's "Trout" Quintet: