Piano quintet

Other piano quintets using this instrumentation were composed by Jan Ladislav Dussek (1799), Ferdinand Ries (1817), Johann Baptist Cramer (1825, 1832), Henri Jean Rigel (1826), Johann Peter Pixis (ca.1827), Franz Limmer (1832), Louise Farrenc (1839, 1840), and George Onslow (1846, 1848, 1849).

Schumann's choice of scoring reflected developments in musical performance and instrumental design.

By midcentury, the string quartet was regarded as the most prestigious and important chamber music genre, while advances in the design of the piano had expanded its power and dynamic range.

In Schumann's hands, the piano quintet became a genre "suspended between private and public spheres" alternating between "quasi-symphonic and more properly chamber-like elements"—well suited to an era when chamber music was increasingly being performed in large concert halls rather than at private gatherings in intimate spaces.

"[1] In the twentieth century, the piano quintet repertoire was expanded with contributions by composers such as Béla Bartók, Sergei Taneyev, Louis Vierne, Edward Elgar, Amy Beach, Gabriel Fauré, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Mieczysław Weinberg.