Franz Schubert transformed five song melodies from his rich output of Lieder into instrumental music. The song “The Trout” from 1817 served as a theme for the variations in his Quintet D. 667 for piano, violin, viola, violoncello and double bass, one of chamber music’s most popular works. The piece’s sunny mood – it sounds much more cheerful than Schubert’s other chamber music – comes across like an echo of the felicitous summer months of 1819.

The then twenty-two-year-old Schubert passed the...