The first part of this DVD celebrates the unique occasion when on August 30, 1969, five young friends – stars of the musical world – met in London to perform Schubert’s most popular chamber work. We meet them in rehearsal, in high spirits, letting their hair down with virtuoso flourishes. This sets the mood for a freshly spontaneous performance of the quintet, with the players exchanging as many smiles as they exchange phrases.

It is an expressive, if not a deeply thoughtful performance, with even just a hint of blandness at times. Yet Daniel Barenboim, then 26, is delightfully poised in articulation, and his new wife, the 24-year-old cellist Jacqueline Du Pré, smiles broadly when she makes a vigorous solo contribution. She blends her tone rapturously with the warm-timbred viola of Pinchas Zukerman and responds equally readily to Itzhak Perlman’s sparkle. Zubin Mehta’s resonant double-bass contribution is unmissable in every bar and especially sonorous when he momentarily has the tune in the lowest register. The slightly opaque sound, if comparatively limited in range and dynamic, is nevertheless very pleasing and naturally balanced. The camerawork is simple and undistracting.

But the film, at 55 minutes, is only a small part of this three-hour DVD and I cannot be at all enthusiastic about The Greatest Love and the Greatest Sorrow, Christopher Nupen’s somewhat indulgent biographical film about Schubert (in effect a montage of sequences from 25 shorts) which he narrates himself, using the composer’s writings and letters.

Nupen creates a picture of Schubert’s last two years steeped in melancholy but during which he wrote much of his greatest music. It’s beautifully played, the Lieder eloquently sung by Andreas Schmidt. Each song is complete but we are offered only tantalising snippets from the other masterworks, too often accompanied by the narration. They are not titled, and the inadequate documentation does not list them either: one has to wait until the end credits for identification.

Though an imaginative enterprise, I wouldn’t want to watch the film again. The Trout, however, is very enjoyable indeed.