String Quintet (Schubert) flat supertonic (D-flat) and the tonic (C), played "forte" in all parts. After Schubert's string quintet was belatedly premiered and published in the 1850s, it gradually gained recognition as a masterpiece. An early admirer was Brahms whose Piano Quintet (1865) was inspired in part by Schubert's (then) newly discovered work. Brahms, in fact, originally wrote that work as a string quintet with two cellos (the complement used by Schubert) and only later recast it as a piano quintet. The piano quintet is in F minor, the key of the turbulent central section of Schubert's "Adagio", while the third movement recalls
String Quintet (Schubert) with Kurt Reher on second cello (a 1994 CD reissue of this performance was awarded a Gramophone Award). Among modern recordings, that featuring the Melos Quartet with Mstislav Rostropovich (1977) has been acclaimed, and is notable for the exceptionally slow tempo adopted for the Adagio. Rostropovich later recorded the quintet with the Emerson String Quartet (12/1990) on the occasion of the gala concert celebrating the 125th anniversary of the BASF AG, Ludwigshafen. A few recordings of the quintet performed on period instruments exist, including a 1990 recording on the Vivarte label with the following lineup: Vera Beths and Lisa Rautenberg,