II: Andante

A beautiful movement, this. From start to finish, this movement is full of long, lyrical, singing melodies and simple yet elegant harmonic accompaniments. A great example of "Schubertian" melody is sung by the viola and cello in the second theme. The distinct quality of Schubert's melodic style is, as one analyst put it, "melancholy yet so comforting".

One thing that characterizes this movement is how it is so prone to traveling into the "wrong" key, yet doing it so seamlessly and beautifully that you don't really care or even notice. Actually, that statment applies to the enitre Trout Quintet, and even to all of Schubert's music in general. The harmonic travels throughout the movement are a good illustration of how Schubert operated.

After starting in the key of F, he ends the first half of the movement on G. Now that we've moved up a whole step in this half, it would then make perfect sense to start the second half in E flat, then copy the first movement's harmonic structure; this would carry us up the whole step from E flat back to the home key of F, right? Well, when you're as resourceful as Schubert. He decides to restart in the key of A flat... which should lead us back to B flat, not F. Schubert's little trick here is that he inserts an extra measusre (you'd probably miss it even if you listened for it) of modulation. Now, suddenly, we are on track to meet back up with F at the end... all thanks to this tiny, almost imperceptible bit of alteration.

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