Piano Quintet (Shostakovich) Piano Quintet (Shostakovich) The Piano Quintet in G Minor, opus 57, by Dmitri Shostakovich is one of his best-known chamber works. Like most piano quintets, it is written for piano and string quartet (two violins, viola and cello). Shostakovich began work on the piece in the summer of 1940 and completed it on September 14. It was written for the Beethoven Quartet, as were most of his string quartets, and premiered by them with Shostakovich himself at the piano on November 23, 1940 at the Moscow Conservatory, to great success. In 1941, it was awarded the Stalin Prize. A typical
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