Piano Quintet (Schumann) in a double fugue. This coup may have been inspired by a similar confluence of themes in the E flat quartet op. 12 of Felix Mendelssohn. Schumann's piano quintet was widely acclaimed and much-imitated. Its success firmly established the piano quintet as a significant, and quintessentially Romantic, chamber music genre. The Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34 of Johannes Brahms, reworked from an earlier sonata for two pianos (itself a reworking of an earlier string quintet) at the urging of Clara Schumann, was one of many significant Romantic piano quintets that show Schumann's influence and adopt his choice of
String Quintet (Bruckner) emphasized. When Bruckner composed his quintet, however, he did not yet know the late quartets of Beethoven - at least according to the statement of the Bruckner researcher Max-Auer, who reports the following: "When Göllerich confessed to this performance [meaning the first performance on 17.11.1881] Bruckner that in the quintet he thinks he recognizes a direct continuation of Beethoven's last quartet, Bruckner, in his modesty, was startled by this comparison with his most revered master, and told him that he unfortunately did not know the last quartets of Beethoven. Göllerich then gave him the scores for the next Christmas." Ernst