Just trillin' with doom

Alex Ross has a new article in The New Yorker focusing on the mysterious "trill of doom" that interrupts the beautiful opening theme of Schubert's final piano sonata. Michael Agger, Ross's fellow New Yorker-er, promoted the article with the following tweet:

“It’s the most extraordinary trill in the history of music.” @alexrossmusic on Schubert, now with TRILL AUDIO: http://nyr.kr/1WlNPwY 

To which Ross responded:

Soon, all @NewYorker articles will be outfitted with TRILL AUDIO

This got me to thinking about what else this trill might disrupt, and...well, before we get to that, here's what the trill sounded like in a 2006 performance by yours truly:



[If you'd like to hear all fifteen minutes of this movement, here's my unedited, live performance, which I don't think I'd listened to since 2006. It's got some rushing and other issues here and there, but I didn't mind listening to it just now. Also, I don't take the exposition repeat which András Schiff insists must be taken - that'll save you five minutes. I prefer my trill to Schiff's, anyway.]

So, finally, here's that trill (Leon Fleisher's version) finding its way into other contexts:



Happy Halloween!