Wait, is my washing machine playing Schubert?

A heartfelt apology from Science Friday to fans of the composer sadly overlooked in our segment about the music played by our appliances.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Flora Lichtman?

  Hey, it's Flora and you're listening to Science Friday. Okay, today, we're just taking a couple of minutes to right a wrong. A couple of weeks back on the show, we talked about the tunes our appliances are playing, and we mentioned this washing machine ditty. And we kind of ragged on it a little bit.

• 0:23Speaker 01

  First of all, it sounded like a fife and imagining a leprechaun.

• 0:27Speaker 02

  If that was ever on my appliance, I think I would like break it.

• 0:32Flora Lichtman?

  Okay, what happened next? Well, team washing machine wrung us out. We got loads of listener calls.

• 0:41Speaker 03

  I thought all of those points of view were ridiculous, wrong, and completely insulting to my beloved, melodic washing machine.

• 0:53Flora Lichtman?

  Most importantly, many of you pointed out that the washing machine melody wasn't some random fife tune. That jingle is based on the beginning of the fourth movement of Schubert's Trout

• 1:07Speaker 04

  Quintet.

• 1:13Speaker 04

  It is a song called "The Trout." Get it? Trout, water, washing machine.

• 1:19Speaker 03

  Far from being irritating, it puts a little worm in your ear, and you go away from it happily humming "De forel" by Franz Schubert.

• 1:29Flora Lichtman?

  Okay, to make things right with all you Schubert stans, we are taking the next few minutes to appreciate the trout with someone who has made a living appreciating Schubert and other 19th century classical music. Here with us is Al Michael Griffl, a longtime music history teacher and former chair of the Music History Department at the Juilliard School and an expert in 19th century classical music. Michael, thank you for being here, and I feel like I need to start by apologizing. I'm sorry for what we did. Well, it's a pleasure to be here. And well.

• 2:03Speaker 05

  What you did, it was a harmless bit of ignorance. But who can blame you? How many people would know the things you know about science?

• 2:13Flora Lichtman?

  That's very, very kind. Okay, but tell me a little bit about this piece and what it meant to Schubert.

• 2:19Speaker 05

  Well, Schubert was a prodigious writer of art songs, known as Lieder in German, writing about 600 or so of them. And he did this even when he was a very, very young man. Some of his most famous songs come from the time when he's 15, 16, 17 years old. And he set this song by a poet called Schubert. That's just a coincidence. And in Schubert's poem, the story is about a fish, a harmless little animal who is jumping up and down and enjoying the brook water and just having fun.

• 3:15Speaker 05

  And here comes this man who wants to catch the fish and can't very easily. So the fisherman muddies up the water. Oh, and then the poor little fish can't have any more fun and gets caught.

• 3:34Flora Lichtman?

  Was this song a banger in the 1800s? Like, is this, you know, the equivalent of the top of the Billboard Hot 100 for people back then?

• 3:43Speaker 05

  Yeah, this was a big hit back then. And so it mattered a lot to him. And in the summer of 1819, with the song having already become very popular, a businessman commissioned Schubert to write a quintet. And the Fourth Movement uses the song melody as its basis. And it's interesting to know that among all of Schubert's chamber music, which includes magnificent works, heavenly works, the Trout Quintet was, is, and I think will continue to be, the most beloved by the general population.

• 4:27Speaker 05

  That's probably why so many were upset.

• 4:31Speaker 05

  Although I think Schubert would have been delighted that even a washing machine is happy to tell us that the clothing is ready or the dishes are ready, and they tell it by using a Schubert song.

• 4:51Speaker 05

  Schubert, by the way, wrote these 600 songs and legions of instrumental pieces, all by the age of 31. He passed away at the age of 31, which is incredible.

• 5:06Flora Lichtman?

  Wow.

• 5:06Speaker 05

  Incredible, with more than 1,000 pieces composed.

• 5:10Flora Lichtman?

  Wow. L. Michael Griffield, the former chair of the Music History Department at the Juilliard School. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. It has been really a treat to swim in these waters with you.

• 5:22Speaker 05

  Well, it's a great pleasure to be with you. Thank you so much for having me.

• 5:27Flora Lichtman?

  And thank you to everybody who called us about this segment. I genuinely loved hearing your feedback, even the scathing voicemails. And I'm really appreciative because you gave us a chance to spend a little time talking about something we don't usually talk about. So, thank you. The listener line is always open for you. 8774-SYFRI is our number. Thanks for listening. I'm Flor Lichten.