The Trout at the Southbank Centre's Queen Elizabeth Hall

The story behind the music, and its unusual arrangement of instruments, originates in the summer of 1819 in upper Austria. Here, whilst staying with his friend Vogl, Schubert was introduced to Sylvester Paumgartner, a patron of the arts and amateur cellist. Paumgartner commissioned Schubert to produce a work for him and his friends, one which would be playable with the combination of instruments they possessed; piano, violin, viola, double bass and cello. 

The Trout quintet – which became known as such owing to its fourth movement being a set of variations on the composer’s earlier Lied, ‘Die Forelle’ (The Trout) – is Schubert’s answer to this unusual ensemble. To avoid over-emphasising the bass, given a double bass has effectively replaced a violin, he scores the cello persistently high, and also gives the piano a light, high-flying part. The double bass meanwhile is given light pointed rhythms. The result is an impressive, and leisurely work, but why is it connected to the Southbank Centre?

For that we need to jump forward a century and a half, to 1968, the year after our brutalist Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room had opened. With these new auditoria in need of regular programming the Royal Festival Hall manager John Dennison announced a new summer festival of concerts, ballet and films for August, including the world premiere of a new Russian film of Swan Lake, for which Dennison had secured a special agreement from the Soviet government.

To provide guidance to the series of musical concerts within South Bank Summer Music Dennison looked to the young Argentine-born pianist Daniel Barenboim. Still just 25-years-old at the time, Barenboim acted as director of a concert series which featured artists including cellist (and wife of Barenboim) Jacqueline du Pré, pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy, guitarist John Williams, violinist Itzhak Perlman, mezzo-soprano Janet Baker, harpsichordist Rafael Guyana, and members of the English Chamber Orchestra.

According to a London Evening Standard piece ahead of the series, Barenboim told the press ‘the South Bank halls are far more suitable for chamber music than the Proms at the Albert Hall’, and that, ‘the concerts would fill a real need in London during the summer.’ Barenboim wasn’t wrong, and with what the Evening Standard’s Sydney Edwards described as ‘prices likely to be acceptable to the large number of tourists and visitors in London in August,’ with ‘attractions at the Purcell Room only three shillings to attend,’ the festival proved a success. And so in 1969 South Bank Summer Music returned, from 18 to 30 August, once again with Barenboim in a directorial role.

By now the summer festival had found an identity of its own, being described by Dennison in the series programme as ‘a festival of informal holiday occasions for the young of all ages to whom music is a recreation’. These notions of informality, and music as a recreation, didn’t end in the auditorium seats, they extended onto the stage, with Barenboim incorporating a number of exciting young musicians, many of whom he was close friends with; du Pré of course returned, and Perlman, Ashkenazy too, but also added to the bill were violinist Pinchas Zukerman, baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, harpsichordist Rafael Puyana, and Zubin Mehta, double-bassist and musical director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra.

But It wasn’t just young musical associates of Barenboim’s that were drawn to the summer festival. Also making a beeline for the South Bank that August was the South African-born filmmaker Christopher Nupen. Originally a sound engineer at the BBC, Nupren’s successful work for BBC Radio Three led to him being invited to make films for the corporation. In 1966 he worked with Barenboim and Ashkenazy to produce Double Concerto, which pioneered a new intimate style of biographical film. By 1969 he had established his own independent production company Allegro Films, and would reconnect with his friend Barenboim again to produce a new documentary film, focussing on the penultimate day of our summer festival, and an afternoon performance of Schubert’s Trout quintet. 

The artists comprising what would become an iconic quintet were Barenboim (piano), du Pré (cello), Perlman (violin), Zuckerman (viola) and Mehta (double bass). All five had been involved in other concerts throughout the festival; this was du Pré’s fifth of six appearances across the fortnight, Zuckerman’s third, whilst Barenboim would perform again that evening. But as they convened in the Queen Elizabeth Hall green room ahead of the 3pm concert, the close friends showed no signs of fatigue, and their camaraderie would be captured by Nupren’s cameras, giving a remarkable insight into the fun personalities of these emerging international artists. 

Backstage, far from showing any signs of nerves, the musicians take turns to play each other’s instruments and attempt to make each other laugh as they await their call to perform. But it’s only thanks to Nupren’s foresight, and his unique approach to documenting the concert, that we’re able to get sight of this moment. ‘The intention was two-fold,’ Nupen has since explained, ‘to film the concert itself live on stage, exactly as it happened, with five film cameras, and to make an introduction to it during the preceding week, documenting the preparations and, in particular, the spirit behind the event.

‘The artists had all been intimate friends for many years but, more importantly, they had a great deal in common musically. In addition, they shared an exuberance in their talents which was unforgettable. The introduction takes the television viewer into areas of music-making and musical personalities that are not normally accessible even to the committed concert-going public’.

On its initial release Nupen’s film, titled ‘The Trout’, actually drew initial criticism from the BBC and The Times for its informal style, but went on to be seen as a benchmark of classical broadcasting, and remains one of the most frequently televised classical music documentaries ever made. The director’s close friendship with many of the artists continued to enable him unique access to be able to portray artists intimately, something he would notably repeat with his 2004 film Jacqueline Du Pré In Portrait. Nupen continued to produce documentaries into the 2010s, and passed away earlier this year.

Remarkably Barenboim continues his association with the Southbank Centre to this day; having debuted in our Royal Festival Hall in 1956, aged just 13, he has appeared in our concert halls every decade since, most recently joining us as part of our 2020/21 Classical Season. And thanks to Barenboim, and his friends, Schubert’s Trout quintet has also enjoyed and maintained a long connection with the Southbank Centre that continues to this day, with its most recent performance coming courtesy of our Resident Artist Alice Sara Ott in March 2023.