SCHUBERT ''THE TROUT''

Franz Schubert took Schubart’s “Trout” and made it immortal. In its simplicity and sparkling energy it provides the model for much of Schubert’s artistry in the Lied form. His song makes use only of the first three stanzas, avoiding the fourth in which Schubart tells us–employing images that would fascinate Sigmund Freud– that his trout is a metaphor. But isn’t this obvious enough? Schubert was right to discard it, since Schubart was following the Baroque form of unwinding the “lesson of this story” in some concluding lines of verse; moreover, he probably suspected, as I do, that the lesson was somewhat different from the one that Schubart, sitting in his prison cell, provides. ''HARPER'S''

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