In the summer months of 1819, 1823 and 1825, Schubert traveled with Johann Michael Vogl, his great singer and friend, to Upper Austria and his homeland of Steyr for several weeks. Vogl introduced him to the city’s musical circles, especially to the house and circle of Sylvester Paumgartner, who was Steyr’s music patron in those years and regularly held house concerts in the “music salon” of his house on the town square, roughly comparable to the Sonnleithner evenings in Vienna. Albert Stadler, Schubert’s friend, who himself came from Steyr, reports impressively on Schubert’s relationship to Steyr and especially to Paumgartner in his communications to Ferdinand Luib from 1858. Stadler’s report is the only source on the composition of the quintet:”You are probably familiar with Schubert’s quintuor for pianoforte, violin, viola, cello and double bass with the variations on his ‘Forelle’. He wrote it at the special request of my friend Sylvester Paumgartner, who was delighted with the delightful little song. According to his wish, the quintuor had to retain the structure and instrumentation of Hummel’s quintet, recte septuors, which was still new at the time. Schubert was soon done with it, he kept the section himself. . .”This report shows that the work was written at Paumgartner’s suggestion, but neither where nor when it was composed. However, one can assume that Schubert composed it for Steyr in 1819.
Pages; 78/19/17/14/15