Background
The work was composed in just a few weeks in September and October 1842, during his "Chamber Music Year." Prior to that year Schumann had completed no chamber music at all with the exception of an early piano quartet (in 1829). However, during his year-long concentration on the genre he wrote three string quartets and a piano quartet in addition to his popular piano quintet.
Schumann was one of the first significant composers to pair the piano with the string quartet. By 1842, the string quartet was well established as the most important chamber music ensemble, and advances in the design of the piano had expanded its power and dynamic range. In combining these instruments, Schumann's piano quintet took full advantage of the expressive possibilities of string quartet and piano, alternating between conversational passages between the five instruments and more concertante passages in which the combined forces of the strings are massed against the piano.
"In the first happiness of reunion with the piano, his creative imagination took on a new lease of life," writes Joan Chisell.
Schumann's work established the quintet for piano and string quartet as a major Romantic genre. Later works for piano quintet written under its influence include those of Johannes Brahms, Antonín Dvořák, César Franck, Edward Elgar, and Dmitri Shostakovitch.
Read more about this topic: Piano Quintet (Schumann)
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