Noted for its "extroverted, exuberant" character, Schumann's piano quintet is considered one of his finest compositions and a major work of nineteenth-century chamber music.

[5] Clara Schumann did play the piano part at the quintet's first public performance, which took place on the 8th January 1843 at the Leipzig Gewandhaus.

[6] A notable performance came in 1852, when Schumann asked that the younger pianist Julius Tausch replace Clara in the quintet, explaining that "a man understands that better.

By 1842, the string quartet had come to be regarded as the most significant and prestigious of the chamber music ensembles, while advances in the design of the piano had increased its power and dynamic range.

He argues that the final movement's lengthy coda is a typically Beethovenian device, and likens the quintet in this respect to the ninth and fourteenth string quartets.

2 in E-flat major, a work Schumann had studied and performed intensively over several months in 1828-1829 and which he greatly admired, describing it as Schubert's "immortal trio.

"[8] Both works are in the key of E-flat, feature a funeral march in the second movement, and conclude with finales dramatically resurrecting earlier thematic material, a composition technique called cyclic form.

It is presented as a duet between cello and viola, and its "meltingly romantic"[5] character is typical of Schumann's ardent inspiration in this quintet.

The central development consists largely of virtuoso figuration in the piano, based on a diminution of the third and fourth bars of the opening theme, which modulates between two vigorous statements of the latter in A-flat and F minor.

The whole forms a seven-part rondo: The transition between funeral march and Agitato episode reuses in the piano and violin the descending octaves appearing at the end of the first movement's exposition (see figure).

Trio II, added at the suggestion of Mendelssohn, is a heavily accented moto perpetuo whose 24 meter and restlessly modulating, mostly minor tonality are in sharp contrast to the 68 and relative stability of the rest.

Since Mendelssohn mentioned that this section wasn't "lively" enough, Schumann rewrote it with a flurry of sixteenth notes making it very demanding for the strings, particularly the cello.

The original handling of both form and key contrasts sharply with the largely conventional formal organization of the previous three movements.

The music modulates to G-sharp minor to begin what is essentially a recapitulation in m. 136, with B returning in E-flat to finally establish the true tonic in m. 178, very late in a lengthy movement.

The movement as a whole can be noted for the rondo-like reappearances of the opening theme A1, which consistently avoids the tonic key until the final fugato; for its innovative key scheme, which combines the restless modulations of a traditional sonata development with the idea of recapitulation in the tonic; and for its successful integration of counterpoint within a non-contrapuntal formal structure.

[15] The funeral march theme of the second movement is prominently used as the main theme of the film Fanny and Alexander by Ingmar Bergman, and is played on violin by Rutger Hauer's character Lothos while Buffy kills the vampire portrayed by Paul Reubens in the 1992 feature Buffy the Vampire Slayer.