In classical music, a piano quintet is a type of chamber music written for a piano and four other instruments. Most piano quintets, since 1842, use a string quartet, which includes two violins, a viola, and a cello. The term "piano quintet" also describes the group of musicians who perform this type of music. This genre became popular during the 1800s.

Before the mid-1800s, most piano quintets included a piano, violin, viola, cello, and double bass. After Robert Schumann's Piano Quintet in E♭ major, Op. 44 was performed in 1842, which combined a piano with a string quartet, composers began using this arrangement more often. This version of the piano quintet became the most common during the second half of the 1800s and into the 1900s.

Well-known piano quintets, besides Schumann's, include Schubert's Trout Quintet and works by Johannes Brahms, César Franck, Antonín Dvořák, and Dmitri Shostakovich.

The piano quintet before 1842

In the 1700s, composers like Mozart helped develop related music forms such as the piano trio and piano quartet. However, the piano quintet became more popular in the 1800s. Its beginnings can be traced to the late Classical period, when some piano concertos were adapted for performance with a string quartet.

Luigi Boccherini wrote piano quintets with a string quartet, but before 1842, it was more common for the piano to be accompanied by violin, viola, cello, and double bass. Well-known works for this combination include Franz Schubert’s "Trout" Quintet in A major (1819) and Johann Nepomuk Hummel’s Piano Quintet in E-flat minor, Op.87 (1802). Other piano quintets with this instrumentation were written by Jan Ladislav Dussek (1799), Ferdinand Ries (1817), Johann Baptist Cramer (1825, 1832), Henri Jean Rigel (1826), Johann Peter Pixis (around 1827), Franz Limmer (1832), Louise Farrenc (1839, 1840), and George Onslow (1846, 1848, 1849).

Mozart (1784) and Ludwig van Beethoven (1796) each composed a quintet for piano and winds, scored for piano, oboe, clarinet, horn, and bassoon. These works are sometimes called piano quintets.

Schumann and the Romantic piano quintet

In the middle of the 19th century, Robert Schumann wrote a Piano Quintet in E♭ major, Op. 44 (1842). This piece was composed for piano and string quartet, and it helped make that combination of instruments the standard for piano quintets. Schumann’s choice of instruments showed how music performance and instrument design were changing at the time.

By the middle of the 19th century, the string quartet was considered the most important type of chamber music. At the same time, improvements in piano design made the instrument louder and more powerful. Schumann’s piano quintet combined the piano and string quartet to use the strengths of both. The piece alternates between moments where the five instruments play together in conversation and moments where the strings play as a group against the piano. Schumann’s work showed how the piano quintet could mix elements of both large symphonic music and smaller, more intimate chamber music. This was fitting for a time when chamber music was often played in big concert halls instead of private homes.

Schumann’s quintet helped make the piano quintet a major genre during the Romantic period in classical music. The piece was quickly praised and widely copied. For example, Johannes Brahms was encouraged by Clara Schumann, who had played the piano in the first public performance of her husband’s quintet, to change a two-piano sonata into a piano quintet. The result, Brahms’ Piano Quintet in F minor (1864), is one of the most often performed works in the genre.

Later compositions, such as César Franck’s Piano Quintet in F minor (1879) and Antonín Dvořák’s Piano Quintet No. 2 in A major, Op. 81 (1887), helped make the piano quintet a popular way to express Romantic ideas in music.

20th century

In the twentieth century, more piano quintet music was created by composers like Béla Bartók, Sergei Taneyev, Louis Vierne, Edward Elgar, Amy Beach, Gabriel Fauré, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Mieczysław Weinberg. However, unlike the string quartet, which continued to be a key form for trying new musical ideas, the piano quintet became less connected to major changes in music styles.

List of compositions for piano quintet

The following is a list of some examples of music written for piano quintet. All pieces are written for piano and string quartet, except when something else is mentioned.