In Mannheim, the virtuoso flutist Johann Baptist Wendling provided Mozart with a place to stay, a piano, and a bundle of commissions for flute quartets and concertos. But there was a catch.
Mendelssohn wrote the String Quintet No. 1 in 1826 at 17 years old, revising it six years later with a new slow movement dedicated to the memory of Eduard Rietz, a close friend who had died of tuberculosis.
Perhaps because it foils preconceptions about what Dvořák’s music should sound like, the Piano Quartet No. 2 is often overlooked. But it’s masterfully written and full of surprises.
The sunrise is in the first measures—the first violin peaks up from a gentle dissonance. And so the day begins: mostly sunny, with a chance of clouds in the slow movement.
It would make sense for a viola quintet to start with the violas—but no, Brahms has the cello dive in with a wild solo across most of its range, springing across strings and punctuating with rolled chords, all while the other instruments gleam together above.
While many composers might set out to write a piano quintet, for Brahms it was simply the best ensemble in which to house a musical idea.
Beethoven was best known as a pianist, but he also played violin and viola, and this is his first published work for strings alone.
Haydn developed a sideline writing for the growing commercial market. There was a lot of money in selling new works, or repackaging parts of old ones, like in these divertimentos.
Brahms’s Piano Trio No. 1 is a youthful work. But the piece we hear today was revised in 1889, 35 years later, at the pinnacle of his career.
The sharp opening of Beethoven’s first piano trio announced to the world that a new, important composer had arrived: it was this piece that he chose to publish as his Op. 1, No. 1.