LISTEN Audio Instructions
Need ideas for easy and fun at-home music learning? Here's our YourClassical Music Lesson about fishing.
Target age range: grades 2-5
1. First, set off in your boat. Here is some music about being on a boat. It's called En bateau, which means "on a boat," by Claude Debussy. As you listen, notice the rocking rhythm. It feels a little like gentle waves that rock the boat.
2. Now it's time to fish! Read this poem about trout fishing, by the German poet Christian Schubart. The poem was originally in German, this is a translated version.
Die Forelle (The Trout)
In a clear little brook,
There darted, about in happy haste,
The moody trout
Dashing everywhere like an arrow.
I stood on the bank
And watched, in sweet peace,
The fish's bath
In the clear little brook.
A fisherman with his gear
Came to stand on the bank
And watched with cold blood
As the little fish weaved here and there.
But as long as the water remains clear,
I thought, no worry,
He'll never catch the trout
With his hook.
But finally, for the thief,
Time seemed to pass too slowly.
He made the little brook murky,
And before I thought it could be,
So his line twitched.
There thrashed the fish,
And I, with raging blood,
Gazed on the betrayed one.
Can you draw a picture of the scene this poem makes you think of in your imagination?
3. How would you turn this poem into music? The composer Franz Schubert used this poem to create a famous song called Die Forelle Watch and listen to the video below to hear how Schubert turned this poem into a song. You will hear the words sung in the original German language. Pay close attention to everything you hear. Do the little leaps in the piano part sound like a trout leaping out of the stream? Can you hear a little bit of the struggle of a fish squirming on the line?
4. Schubert later used the melody from his song Die Forelle in a famous piece called the Trout Quintet, for string quartet and piano. Here is a little bit of that piece, along with more pictures of swimming trout.
Have a question or suggestion? Contact Katie Condon, music education specialist.
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This activity is made possible in part by the Minnesota Legacy Amendment‘s Arts & Cultural Heritage Fund.
