Piano Quintet - Classical Roots of The Piano Quintet

Classical Roots of The Piano Quintet

While the piano trio and piano quartet were firmly established in the eighteenth century by Mozart and others, the piano quintet did not come into its own as a genre until the nineteenth century. Its roots extend into the late Classical period, when piano concertos were sometimes transcribed for piano with string quartet accompaniment. Not before the mid-nineteenth century was music ordinarily composed expressly for this combination of instruments. Although such classical composers as Dussek and Boccherini wrote quintets for piano and string quartet, more commonly, a piano would be joined by violin, viola, cello and double bass. As the double bass would generally double the bass line in the piano part, such works were in effect piano quartets with basso continuo. Schubert's "Trout" Quintet (1819) is written for this combination of forces, as are the quintets of Hummel (1802), Ferdinand Ries (1809), and Farrenc (1839, 1840).