(Deutsche Grammaphonaktiengesellschaft.)
C2-42531. The Trout by Schubert.
Mountain stream water burbling crystal clear between cliff and pine tree permutated into music. The trout, a ravishing predator, light gray with red speckles, lurking, standing, flowing, shooting forward, downward, upward, disappearing. Beautiful blood-thirstiness!
The piano accompaniment is sweet, soft, monotone of gurgling torrent, deep and dark green. Real life is no longer needed. We feel the fairy tale of nature!
Every day in Gmunden in the afternoon hours, a lady in a watch-maker’s shop had them play the gramophone record C2-42531 two to three times. She sat on a tabouret, I stood close to the device.
We never said a word to each other.
Henceforth she would always hold off on the concert till I appeared.
One day she paid to have it played three times, whereupon she was about to leave. I paid to have it played a fourth time. She waited at the door, listened along to the end.
Gramophone record C2-42531, Schubert, The Trout.
One day she didn’t come any more.
The song survived like a present from her.
Autumn came, and the esplanade was lightly paved with scattered yellow leaves.
And then they shelved the gramophone in the watchmaker’s shop since it no longer paid to keep it.