Piano Quintet in E flat major, Op.44 — Robert Schumann | The Gerald Larner Programme Note Archive

Allegro brillante

In Modo d’una Marcia: un poco largamente

Scherzo: molto vivace

Allegro ma non troppo

Someone, sooner or later, was going to produce a major work for piano and string quartet. In fact, and for very good reasons, it was Robert Schumann in 1842. In the earlier part of that year he had written his three String Quartets, Op.41, having up to that time concentrated largely on the piano and having completed only two scores - the First Symphony and the Overture, Scherzo and Finale - without a significant part for his favourite instrument. Denying himself the reassurance of his first language, and the rare fluency with which he expressed himself in it, had not been easy for him, uncommonly successful though the string quartets are. It was surely in the intention of consolidating his hard-won mastery of the string quartet and at the same time indulging himself in writing for the instrument he knew best that Schumann became the first known composer to put the two together.

The composer’s joy in the medium is evident from the start of the Allegro brillante with piano and strings all involved in the reckless melodic leaps and liberated harmonies of the first subject. Rationalising the opening rising seventh by expanding it into an octave, the piano and then the first violin present a more lyrical version of the theme before the piano anticipates the tenderly expressive second subject about to be introduced by the cello in B flat major. The slow-moving, dark-coloured descending phrase ominously reiterated at the beginning of the development section puts a temporary stop to the exuberance which, thanks to the anxiety and the harmonic insecurity of the piano, is recovered only at the beginning of the recapitulation.

The reason for the anxiety is revealed by the beginning of the slow movement, a serious-minded march in C minor with a halting melody carried exclusively for the strings. The piano is again featured less prominently than the strings in the serene violin and cello duet of the first episode in C major. But it is the piano that remembers the ominous descending phrase from the Allegro brillante, provoking another anxiety attack in the central agitato episode in F minor. The first episode is recapitulated in F major but the movement ends in the same funereal mood as it began.

At the time Schumann wrote the Piano Quartet he and Clara were living in Leipzig, in close proximity to Felix Mendelssohn. Clara being unable to participate through pregnancy, Mendelssohn played the piano part in a private performance of an early version of the work in December 1842 and advised Schumann not only to shorten the slow movement but also to replace an unsatisfactory second trio section in the Scherzo. Schumann agreed in both cases. The new second trio, a brilliantly scored Hungarian-dance oscillating dangerously between A flat minor and E major, is an inspiration like nothing else in his music. Irresponsibly impulsive though it might seem, however, it is prudent enough to recall the first theme of the first movement before it gives way to the last return of the scherzo material in E flat major. The lyrical first trio in G flat major incorporates a fond reference to melody from Clara’s Romance variée, Op.3.

The apparent dismissal in the Scherzo of the fears expressed in the first two movements is confirmed by the finale. While the E flat major orientation of the Allegro ma non troppo is not immediately obvious, the opening theme shares something of the exuberance of the main theme of the Allegro brillante, in spite of the minor harmonies applied to it at this stage. It has such reserves of rhythmic energy that it is active nearly everywhere, generating similarly dynamic thematic variants and urging the movement always forwards. The one place where pressure is relaxed is a romantic interlude of simulated horn calls in E major which, brief thought it is, inspires the first violin to project a more expansive melody against continuing urgent activity on the viola. But, although that melody is featured prominently enough in the contrapuntal development, it has no place at the climax of Schumann’s long-term structural strategy - an emphatically conclusive fugato masterfully combining the main theme of the first movement with the main theme of the finale as countersubject. There is still energy in reserve to celebrate the achievement in the coda.

Liszt dismissed the Piano Quintet in E flat as too “Leipzigerisch” - too Mendelssohnian, presumably. Brahms, whose Piano Quintet in F minor, Op.34, was the next in a distinguished line of descendants, clearly did not agree.