LDV61

18 BRAHMS_PIANO QUINTET IN F MINOR OP.34 / KLAVIERSTÜCKE OP.76 The Piano Quintet in F minor Many of Brahms’s works only took on their final form after several unsuccessful attempts in other guises. It was thanks to (or because of) Clara Schumann, Joseph Joachim and Hermann Levi that he initially composed, in 1862, a string quintet in F minor which became . . . a sonata for two pianos. The latter enjoyed some success (it became his op.34a), while the quintet disappeared in smoke up the chimney . . . Two years later – again at the instigation of Clara Schumann and the conductor Hermann Levi – Brahms produced a third version of the work, this time for piano and string quartet. The score, composed in the summer of 1864, received its premiere in Leipzig on 22 June 1866. With its four movements, the Piano Quintet is on an unusually large scale. ‘The discourse between the piano and the strings is intimately connected’, observes Geoffroy Couteau, who adds: ‘The piece is more“symphonic” than concertante. The thematic cells and rhythmic formulas circulate between the strings and the piano, always emphasising the fusion of each of the protagonists within a guiding idea that gives the work its unity.’