Before month's end, our Trout Trio reunited in a practice room
(with a spinet, not a grand piano --
the night was chilly, and that room was not as cold)
in order to read through some stuff together.

By this time I had actually ordered, and had delivered,
a decent edition score of Schubert's entire Trout Quintet.
I looked over the remaining four movements.
With a violin, as a Trout Quartet,
we could have faked our way through all five movements.
Without a violin, well ... actually
there were two additional movements that we could get away with.

The opening movement and the final (fifth) movement
absolutely require the violin part, so we left those alone.
But our Trout Trio, moving on from the Theme and Variations,
read through the
Scherzo with its attached Trio (the quickest and lightest of all the movements),
and Movement Two, an Andante something or other.
That second movement was the interesting thing.
The violin actually has relatively little to do;
I was able to play the violin part, where it was essential,
with my right hand at the piano keyboard.
In a couple of spots in the second movement,
the viola and the cello (the rest of the Trout Trio here)
have a soulful duet melody,
while the violin, the string bass, and the piano
turn into a rhythm section.

It was only a read-through, but it was a lot of fun.