The Piano Quartet and Quintet Style, Structure, and Scoring [Paperback]

Designed as a companion volume to the author's earlier study,The Piano Trio, this book surveys the development of the piano quartet and quintet from their beginnings in the mid-eighteenth century to the present day. Developments during the first four decades of the nineteenth century resulted not only in Schubert's renownedTrout Quintet, but also in works of much brilliance by Dussek, Hummel, Weber, and others in which the piano predominates in a concerto-like role. Subsequently, Schumann's epoch-making quintet of 1842 initiated a broadly symphonic style, with large-scale structures and closely integrated textures, which was taken up by many later composers, including Brahms, Dvorak, Cesar Franck, Faure, and Elgar. The author also examines the numerous changes in the nature of the genres which have occurred in recent times, and gives special consideration to a number of works by leading twentieth-century composers, in which mixed media are formed by combining wind instruments with the normal strings-and-piano ensembles.

This book should be on the shelves of all music libraries. Professor Smallman possesses the enviable ability to say what the music is like with an economy of means and a minimum of technical jargon; his writing is clear, lively, and acute. Each reader will find something new. --Brio.