The Piano Quintet in E-flat major, Op.87, is a composition by the Austrian composer

Johann Nepomuk Hummel Johann Nepomuk Hummel (14 November 177817 October 1837) was an Austrian composer and virtuoso pianist. His music reflects the Transition from Classical to Romantic music, transition from the Classical period (music), Classical to the Romantic ...

. Composed in 1802, it was not published until around 1822 and might have served as an example cited by Sylvester Paumgartner who commissioned

Schubert Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wor ...

to write his own

piano quintet In classical music, a piano quintet is a work of chamber music written for piano and four other instruments, most commonly a string quartet (i.e., two violins, viola, and cello). The term also refers to the group of musicians that plays a pian ...

Instrumentation

The piece is written for a then-common combination of instruments in a

; namely, the piano is joined by violin, viola, cello and double bass (the double bass is replaced with another violin, much like a string quartet, in later piano quintets). Perhaps, along with Schubert's Trout Quintet, the two are the most famous pieces written for such a

combination In mathematics, a combination is a selection of items from a set that has distinct members, such that the order of selection does not matter (unlike permutations). For example, given three fruits, say an apple, an orange and a pear, there are th ...

. Hummel later transcribed his

septet A septet is a formation containing exactly seven members. It is commonly associated with musical groups but can be applied to any situation where seven similar or related objects are considered a single unit, such as a seven-line stanza of poetry. ...

for this combination of instruments as well.

Movements

The piece is written in four movements: #Allegro e risoluto assai #Minuet e trio: Allegro con fuoco #Largo #Finale: Allegro agitato In almost all movements, it is the piano which takes a leading role and even goes as far as displaying virtuosic passages. Despite all that, the piece exhibits the congeniality of a piece of chamber music much like that of the music composed by Hummel's contemporary, Schubert.

References

Compositions by Johann Nepomuk Hummel Hummel 1802 compositions Compositions in E-flat major {{Chamber-composition-stub