27th June 2024

Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904) String Quintet No. 3 in E♭ major, Op. 97

Dvořák composed three string quintets in 1861, 1875 and 1893 respectively. The third quintet, scored for two violins, two violas and cello was written while he was still living in the American mid west. It was composed after the String Quartet No. 12 in F major, and it has become common for both these works to share the epithet “American”, and both merge Dvořák’s own cultural heritage with the American idioms he was exploring and absorbing in the three years (1892-1895) he lived there. In particular, the opening of the Allegro Vivo Scherzo has the feel of native American music.

In structure, the quintet’s scoring does not give equal weight to the instruments, but rather is more like a quartet with an additional viola, which has led to it also being called the Viola Quintet.

Robert Schumann (1810-1856) Piano Quintet in E♭ major, Op. 44

Composed in as one of 6 large scale chamber works in 1842, Schumann’s Piano Quintet is a lively, ebullient work of great character and importance. Like the Dvořák String Quintet, the scoring is essentially that of a quartet with an additional instrument: for the Dvořák, it is the viola, and for the Schumann, the piano. Its importance is in defining the romantic genre for chamber works with its, for then, unusual and original instrumentation. Pairing the piano with a string quartet had only become possible at this time due to the technical development of the piano, which Schumann exploited. Previously, the piano would not have had the power or expressive dynamic to compete with the quartet.

As with many works, Schumann dedicated the Piano Quintet to his wife Clara, to whom he had been married for only two years at the time.

The four movements are in the conventional fast, slow, scherzo, fast structure.