Piano Quintet No. 2 (Dvořák) Piano Quintet No. 2 (Dvořák) Antonín Dvořák's Piano Quintet No. 2 in A major, Op. 81, B. 155, is a quintet for piano, 2 violins, viola, and cello. It was composed between August 18 and October 8, 1887, and was premiered in Prague on January 6, 1888. The quintet is acknowledged as one of the masterpieces in the form, along with those of Schumann, Brahms and Shostakovich. The work was actually composed as the result of the composer’s attempt to revise an earlier work, Piano Quintet in A major, Op. 5. Dvořák was dissatisfied with the Op. 5 quintet and
String Quintet (Schubert) viola with a second cello; however, Schubert's use of the second cello is very different from Boccherini's, who uses the additional cello to create an additional viola line. Alfred Einstein has proposed that Schubert's use of a second cello to enhance the lower strings may have been suggested by George Onslow, who used a double bass in some of his quintets. The string quintet consists of four movements in the usual quick-slow-scherzo-quick pattern: In common with other late Schubert works (notably, the symphony in C major, D. 944, the piano sonata in B-flat major, D. 960, and the string quartet