Schumann: Piano Quintet in E flat major, Op. 44 - download (MP3 & FLAC)

Piano arrangements were the main way for people to become acquainted with concert repertoire in Schumann’s day, and publishers ensured that the huge demand for such versions was met. Otto Dresel’s arrangement of the String Quartet, Op. 41, No. 3 was approved by the composer. Clara Schumann was dedicatee and soloist for the Piano Quintet, Op. 44, and she was able to draw on her intimate knowledge of her husband’s work to make her own highly effective arrangement. This is the first of seven volumes including Schumann’s entire orchestral works arranged for piano duet.

Between 1841 and 1843 Schumann wrote some of his greatest chamber works, among them the Piano Quartet and the Piano Quintet, both in E flat major. Written in an astonishing five-day period, the Quintet displays both the heroic and the lyric impulses in his music, boldness contrasting with songful tenderness, and march themes with lyricism. The Piano Quartet also exudes such qualities, not least in the ravishing slow movement, and the masterful breadth of Schumann’s expression. The four Märchenerzählungen are happy, energetic pieces.

The penultimate volume of Eric le Sage's epic Schumann series reaches the chamber music which, with Mendelssohn’s, is the benchmark for the first half of the century in Europe. From Brahms to Fauré, from Saint-Saëns and Lalo to Borodin, passing by Tchaikovsky, none could escape his emotional power nor his formal model. Posterity seems to have operated a definite rating: the Quintet at the top followed by the trios and then the Quartet. If we follow this, the Quintet for piano and Strings would be one of the summits of the chamber music repertoire, whilst the Quartet for piano and strings, its little brother, composed during the summer of 1842 in the same E flat major colour, would be its lesser replica. Discuss!