When Schubert was growing up in the first two decades of the 19th century, the string quartet was the most commonly played and taught form of group instrumental music. Haydn and Mozart had provided the models, and their quartets were carefully studied in music schools and conservatories. Unlike symphonies, moreover, quartets could be played at home, and they provided a rich diet for musical families like the Schuberts.

When he was 14 years old, consequently, Schubert began composing string quartets for his family ensemble – his brothers Ferdinand and Ignaz played the violins; his father Franz Theodor, the cello; and young Franz himself, the viola. By the time he was 20, he had written no fewer than 15 quartets for family use. Of these, four have been lost, and the remaining eleven, while displaying the composer’s gift for melody, are clearly works of his formative years.

This quartet was one of six that Schubert wrote in 1813, his final year at the Imperial City Seminary. The previous summer Schubert’s voice had "broken" – "Schubert, Franz," he scribbled on his vocal part, "crowed for the last time, 16 July 1812." This inevitable event ended his career as a choirboy in the Imperial Court Chapel, whose members attended and resided at the seminary at no charge. The seminary authorities permitted him to stay on for a year or so, but his father was eager to have Franz join the staff of the elementary school he operated on the ground floor of the family residence. Franz produced the quartets to give the family something to play on his return home.

D. 87, the quartet we hear this evening, was the best of the six and was published as Op. 125, No. 1, in 1830, two years following Schubert’s death. For many years, the quality of the quartet led Schubert’s editors to believe that it was composed in 1817 or later. The discovery of the manuscript following World War I firmly established November, 1813, as the date of composition, and today it is the only one of the six early quartets performed with any frequency.

The quartet was clearly written for home consumption – in Europe it sometimes called "The Household Quartet." The work is melodious, easy to play, and with three of the four movements in clearly organized sonata form (that is, an exposition of the themes, then their development and then their restatement). All of the movements are in the tonic E-flat major, and there are none of the daring changes in key that were to become Schubert’s hallmark.

The first movement is an early example of Schubert’s life-long ability to turn out good tunes. The gracious first theme has three phrases, each of which would have been enough. A syncopated figure in the viola leads to the equally gracious second theme. And the first violin has an infectious third theme over a dotted accompaniment in the other instruments.

The scherzo comes next, and it is Beethovenish in its wit. The repeated figure of the main section is created by a quick upward grace note followed by a downward plunge. The contrasting trio is a smoother interlude suggesting a folk song.

The slow movement is a return to sonata form. The first theme is launched by all four players. The first violin offers the second theme against a background of throbbing 16^th notes.

The finale is infectious in its high spirits. Against an accompaniment of 16^th notes, the first violin presents the sparkling first theme – two ascending phrases answered by three in a downward direction. The second theme is equally ingratiating – a phrase for the first violin over a staccato accompaniment. Even at the age of 16, Schubert could turn out catchy tunes.

This work and the "Trout" Quintet that follows share a similar source – each is an instrumental work based on an earlier song.

Schubert so much liked the idea of recalling an earlier vocal work in his instrumental music that he repeated the formula on at least ten occasions. His usual practice was to incorporate these musical references into longer instrumental works along with other musical material. In 1824, however, he also composed a free-standing set of variations on "Trockne Blumen" (Withered Flowers) from his song cycle Die schöne Müllerin.

Die schöne Müllerin – settings of 20 poems by Wilhelm Müller – tells the story of a young man who courts the beautiful daughter of a miller; things go well at first, but his happiness turns to bitterness when she marries another. "Trockne Blumen," the 18^th song in the cycle, is steeped in pathos, expressing the suicidal thoughts of a rejected lover.

The variations, for flute and piano, were written in January, 1824, for an old friend – Ferdinand Bogner, a professor at the Vienna conservatory and an expert flutist. Back in 1815, Schubert and Bogner had played together in the amateur orchestra for which Schubert had composed his second, third, fourth and fifth symphonies. They remained close friends, and in the 1820s were members of the same musical and social circle. Further, Bogner became head of the Gesellschaft der Osterreichischen Musikfruende (Austrian Philharmonic Society), Vienna’s leading group of musical dilettanti, and he arranged the initial public performance of several of Schubert’s songs.

In the instrumental treatment of his songs, Schubert generally adhered to the mood of the original. The "Trockne Blumen" variations are an exception. Here Schubert maintains the intensity of the original song only in the introduction and statement of the theme, the latter substantially condensed from the original. The seven ensuing variations, mainly a virtuoso test for the flutist and pianist, are effusive in spirit and culminate in a triumphal march.

Schubert spent the summer of 1819 walking in the Alps with Johann Michael Vogl, the baritone for whom he wrote many of his songs. Their excursion took them to Vogl’s home town, Steyr, a resort and iron-mining center in an area that Schubert described as "inconceivably lovely."

There Schubert met Sylvester Paumgartner, the assistant mine manager, who was also an amateur musician and the only music patron in town. Paumgartner had converted a salon on the second floor of his house into a music room, decorating it with music symbols and portraits of composers and housing in it a collection of instruments and sheet music. The room was a frequent setting for informal concerts, with Paumgartner playing a wind instrument or cello and filling in with whatever other instrumentalists were available.

Paumgartner was particularly fond of Schubert’s song Die Forelle ("The Trout"), published two years earlier, and he asked Schubert to compose some variations on its tune. Schubert obliged not with just the variations but with a five-movement work, complementing the variations with four other movements.

The "Trout Quintet," as the work became known, is also unusual in its instrumentation – piano, violin, viola, cello, and string bass. (Typically, piano quintets use two violins and no string bass). Paumgartner had assembled that combination of instruments to play a work by Hummel, and he asked Schubert to compose the variations for the same group.

This request had both advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, it made possible a rich antiphony between piano and strings. On the other, the young composer did not know how to use a string bass effectively in a chamber-music setting, and the bass part is – let’s face it – a bit dull. Moreover, to prevent a "bottom heavy" effect, Schubert avoided the bass range of the piano, and much of the pianist’s left hand is in the treble clef, often in parallel octaves with the right hand.

This awkward instrumentation notwithstanding, the quintet is surely one of Schubert’s most lovable and infectious works. With its informality and lightheartedness – there are no minor-key movements – it is clearly holiday music for talented vacationers. Equally important, it was Schubert’s first mature chamber work, displaying his unmatched gift for shifting into different keys for contrast and variety.

Schubert’s harmonic playfulness is heard in the first movement’s opening measures. After a piano flourish, the strings play the first theme in dreamy fashion with the key hard to pin down. After ten measures, the piano picks up the theme in F major rather than the tonic A. Only in the 25th measure does the basic A major emerge, and only then is the theme presented with some degree of certainty. The triplets heard in the opening piano flourish play an important role throughout the movement, adding to the informal mood and providing a framework for the shifting tonality.

The second movement has an unusual structure. There are three related sections – one lyrical in F major, one melancholy in F sharp minor, and one restrained in D major. These sections are then repeated with little change a minor third higher – in A flat major, A minor and F Major – making possible a subtly different harmonic coloring.

After the high-speed scherzo, we come to the heart of the matter – the variations on "The Trout." The strings play the tune but without the rippling piano effects that Schubert used in the song to suggest moving water. This is followed by five variations. Schubert then ends the movement by repeating the theme, this time with the piano rippling of the original.

The final movement, like the first movement, uses triplets to add to the merriment, and, like the second, is of unusual structure. It consists of two sections, the second a carbon copy of the first but in a different pitch. This enables Schubert to indulge his taste for shifting keys and still end in the home key of A major.