Music Sound

A piano quintet is a chamber musical ensemble made up of one piano and four other instruments, or the name of a piece written for such a group.

The most common grouping is one piano, two violins, a viola, and a cello—that is, a piano with a string quartet. This combination of instruments is sufficiently prevalent in classical music that when the phrase piano quintet is used without qualification, it usually refers to this particular group.

Several composers have written piano quintets, although few have written more than one, a rare exception being Gabriel Fauré, who wrote two. Other composers to have written for the usual grouping of a string quartet plus piano include Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Antonin Dvorak (who also wrote more than one, though only one is played with any regularity), and Dmitri Shostakovich. Franz Schubert's famous Trout Quintet is written for the less usual combination of piano, violin, viola, cello, and double bass.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven both wrote pieces for a piano and four wind instruments (oboe, clarinet, horn, and bassoon in both cases). Although these pieces could be called piano quintets, they are more often referred to as "quintets for piano and wind" so as to distinguish them from pieces with the more usual instrumentation.

List of works

The following is a partial list of piano quintets by famous composers. All works are for piano and string quartet unless otherwise noted.

Amy Beach - Piano Quintet
Ludwig van Beethoven  - Piano Quintet (for piano, oboe, clarinet, horn, and bassoon; 1796)
Johannes Brahms - Piano Quintet (1864)
Ernö Dohnányi - Piano Quintet No. 1 (1895) Piano Quintet No. 2 (1914)
Antonin Dvorak - Piano Quintet No. 1 (1875) Piano Quintet No. 2 (1889)
Edward Elgar - Piano Quintet (1918)
Gabriel Fauré - Piano Quintet No. 1 (completed 1905) Piano Quintet No. 2 (completed 1921)
César Franck - Piano Quintet (1879)
Sofia Gubaidulina  - Piano Quintet (1957)
Johann Nepomuk Hummel  - Piano Quintet (for piano, violin, viola, cello, and double bass)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Piano Quintet, K. 452 (for piano, oboe, clarinet, horn and, bassoon; 1784)
Leo Ornstein - Piano Quintet (1927)
Camille Saint-Saëns  - Piano Quintet in A minor, op. 14 (1855)
Alfred Schnittke - Piano Quintet (1976)
Franz Schubert - Trout Quintet (for piano, violin, viola, cello, and double bass; 1819)
Robert Schumann - Piano Quintet (1842)
Dmitri Shostakovich - Piano Quintet (1940)
Anton Webern - Piano Quintet (1907)