Schumann’s pioneer quintet became the model for a small but select line of similar works by other composers – Brahms, Franck, Dvorak, Fauré, Elgar, Reger, Bloch and Shostakovich. It is interesting that, with a single exception, each of these composers, including Schumann, wrote only one piano quintet, and that in each instance it was one of the composer’s most successful compositions.
Schumann’s quintet was written in 1842, the year in which, in one compulsive effort, he composed most of his major chamber-music compositions. Inspired by the great works of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, he first completed his three string quartets. He then had the idea of adding to the four instruments a piano part for his wife Clara, a renowned concert pianist, and the resulting piano quintet was written in less than three weeks.
The first public performance of the quintet took place in Leipzig the following January with Clara at the piano, and was an immediate success. Further, Berlioz, then a leading critic as well as a composer, was visiting from Paris, and his drum-beating for the work did more than anything else to establish Schumann’s reputation throughout Europe.
