Schubert, Die Forelle

Background

Franz Schubert’s “Die Forelle” (“The Trout”), composed around 1817, is one of his most beloved songs, combining the easy charm of a folk‑like melody with subtle dramatic detail. It sets a poem by Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart in which an onlooker watches a lively trout in a clear brook and then reacts with shock and sympathy when a fisherman muddies the water and suddenly catches the fish.

The poem’s first stanzas describe the trout darting happily through transparent water while a frustrated fisherman waits in vain on the bank. Eventually the fisherman deliberately churns up the stream so the trout can no longer see the danger, and in the confusion he hooks it, to the onlooker’s dismay and anger.

Schubert writes the song for voice and piano in D‑flat major with a lively, flowing accompaniment that suggests the trout’s constant motion in the clear brook. The first two verses use the same buoyant music, but in the final verse the harmony darkens and the figuration thickens and breaks into startled rests to depict the water turning muddy and the moment of capture.

“Die Forelle” uses a modified strophic form: each stanza returns to essentially the same tuneful melody, but Schubert alters it in the last stanza to heighten the drama.

 

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Listening

Die Forelle

0:00  Piano Introduction

0:10  Stanza 1 – A trout swims blissfully in the brook

In einem Bächlein helle,
Da schoß in froher Eil'
Die launische Forelle
Vorüber wie ein Pfeil.
Ich stand an dem Gestade
Und sah in süßer Ruh
Des muntern Fischleins Bade
Im klaren Bächlein zu.

In a limpid brook
the capricious trout
in joyous haste
darted by like an arrow.
I stood on the bank
in blissful peace, watching
the lively fish swim
 in the clear brook.

0:44  Stanza 2 – The fisherman tries to catch the trout

Ein Fischer mit der Rute
Wohl an dem Ufer stand,
Und sah's mit kaltem Blute,
Wie sich das Fischlein wand.
So lang dem Wasser Helle,
So dacht ich, nicht gebricht,
So fängt er die Forelle
Mit seiner Angel nicht. 

An angler with his rod 
stood on the bank
cold-bloodedly watching
 the fish’s contortions.
As long as the water 
is clear, I thought, 
he won’t catch the trout 
with his rod. 

1:17  Stanza 3 – The fisherman muddles the water and successfully catch the trout

Doch endlich ward dem Diebe
Die Zeit zu lang. Er macht
Das Bächlein tückisch trübe,
Und eh ich es gedacht,
So zuckte seine Rute,
Das Fischlein zappelt dran,
Und ich mit regem Blute
Sah die Betrogene an. 

But at length the thief
grew impatient. Cunningly
he made the brook cloudy, 
and in an instant
his rod quivered,
and the fish struggled on it.
And I, my blood boiling,
looked on at the cheated creature.