Composed 1842; 28 minutes

In 1842, after intensive study of the great string quartets of the past, Schumann completed three of his own. He followed these with the inspired Piano Quintet, Op. 44, taking just five days for the sketches and two weeks for the score. A month later, also after five days of sketches, he completed the Piano Quartet, Op. 47. Both the Quartet and Quintet are in the key of E-flat. While the Piano Quintet had no precedent, the Piano Quartet followed the two by Mozart and one by Beethoven (a transcription of the Quintet for piano and winds, Op. 16). Schumann first explored these works in 1828 while ostensibly pursuing law studies at the University of Leipzig. There, he formed his own piano quartet to read through several piano quartets and trios, often with an audience of musicians present to share the discovery. He even drafted a C minor piano quartet of his own, now catalogued as WoO 32 and published in 1979.

Schumann wrote the E-flat Piano Quartet some 14 years later. It is more closely related to his own Piano Quintet than to the earlier work or to the classical quartets he had studied. Both the Piano Quartet and Quintet put the piano front and center in the texture, as in a miniature piano concerto. Because of its reduced forces, the Quartet, however, has a more intimate scale than the Quintet. The first movement opens with a foreshadowing of the terse main theme that is to propel the movement energetically forward. The rising second theme gives an opportunity for Schumann to employ his new-found interest in counterpoint. Development and recapitulation are skillfully woven together in this classically constructed movement. Although the dashing passagework of the Scherzo has something of a Mendelssohn-like lightness and buoyancy, a gathering cloud seems to hang over its minor-key activity. 

The slow movement is the emotional high point of the quartet. It opens with a gloriously soaring cello theme, by way of tribute to the cello-playing Count Matvei (or Mathieu) Wielhorsky, who commissioned the music—and owned both an Amati and a Stradivari cello. Although an amateur, Wielhorsky gave the first performance of the quartet along with Ferdinand David (violin), Niels Gade (viola), and Clara Schumann, for whom the piece was designed. Brahms paid tribute to the eloquence of Schumann’s writing by modelling the slow movements of his C minor Piano Quartet and B-flat Piano Concerto on this opening theme. Extra resonance is provided in this movement when the cellist tunes down the lowest string to B-flat, the home key of the movement. The time taken to do so also allows the viola to take over the restatement of the heart-warming melody. The finale bursts onto the conclusion of the slow movement, exuberantly unleashing melody upon melody, contrapuntally working them through with a glee that few who have tackled the art of counterpoint have brought to their hard-won results.

— All program notes copyright © 2026 Keith Horner.
Comments welcomed: khnotes@sympatico.ca