Piano Quintet (Franck) score open at the piano, a gesture which was interpreted as mark of disdain. The work has been described as having a "torrid emotional power", and Édouard Lalo characterized it as an "explosion". Other critics have been less positively impressed: Roger Scruton has written of the quintet's "unctuous narcissism". There are three movements: The music has a cyclical character whereby a motto theme of two four-bar phrases, used 18 times in the first movement, recurs at strategic point later in the work. Piano Quintet (Franck) César Franck's Piano Quintet in F minor is a quintet for piano, 2 violins, viola,
Piano quintet scored for piano, oboe, clarinet, horn, and bassoon. Not until the middle of the 19th century did Robert Schumann's Piano Quintet in E major, Op. 44 (1842) firmly establish music for piano and string quartet as a significant, and quintessentially Romantic, chamber music genre. By 1842, the string quartet had evolved into the most important chamber music ensemble, and advances in the design of the piano had expanded its power and dynamic range. Bringing the piano and string quartet together, Schumann's Piano Quintet took full advantage of the expressive possibilities of these forces in combination, alternating conversational passages between the