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
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