# Brahms: Piano Quintet op. 34



## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Brahms' Piano Quintet, op. 34 is currently on the eighth tier of the Talk Classical community's favorite and most highly recommended works, making it the highest rated piano quintet and tied for the third highest rated quintet with Mozart's clarinet quintet in A.

Kelly Dean Hansen has great listening guides on this piece in both its quintet (op. 34) and two piano (op. 34b) forms. She notes (as others have) that while Brahms liked the content of the quintet, he was not satisfied with the instrumentation, which led him to rearrange the work for two pianos, and no one really knows if that was meant to be the final form or just an intermediate step towards an orchestral arrangement.

What do you guys think about this work? Do you have any reservations about it?

Personally I love the piece every bit as much as the next Brahmsian, but I am a bit divided on it. On one hand, it is an epic work, an epic exploration of rich sonorities and masterful manipulation of content, but on the other hand, I can see where the criticisms (including Brahms' own) regarding the piece (especially its instrumentation) come from. It does seem a bit "big for its britches" at times, so to speak... but I suppose that is part of the beauty of it. Still, I do not think it is fair to say this work is Brahms' "best" chamber work (a title that would probably be designated to this piece almost as often as the clarinet quintet), as the 3 piano trios, the 1st and 3rd piano quartets, the clarinet trio, the clarinet quintet, the 3 violin sonatas, the 2 cello sonatas, the 2 clarinet sonatas (and their viola arrangements), and the second string quintet are all just as good if not better (IMO). Furthermore, I think that the Schumann piano quintet is probably the best example of the form.

However, the third movement of this piece (especially the trio!) remains one of my favorite moments in all of music. Simply stunning.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> Brahms' Piano Quintet, op. 34 is currently on the eighth tier of the Talk Classical community's favorite and most highly recommended works, making it the highest rated piano quintet and tied for the third highest rated quintet with Mozart's clarinet quintet in A.
> 
> Kelly Dean Hansen has great listening guides on this piece in both its quintet (op. 34) and two piano (op. 34b) forms. She notes (as others have) that while Brahms liked the content of the quintet, he was not satisfied with the instrumentation, which led him to rearrange the work for two pianos, and no one really knows if that was meant to be the final form or just an intermediate step towards an orchestral arrangement.
> 
> ...


Ask the mods to put this in the right section.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

The collected chamber music of Johannes Brahms is one my my main treasures in classical music. Lots of highlights, and just a few works that I don't particularly care about. This one (with the string quartets) belongs to the latter category unfortunately.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

@Art Rock, I totally see where you're coming from. Brahms's chamber music is some of my favorite music of all time, and while I do really like this piece, but I'm not too fond of the string quartets. I guess it's a bit odd; one would expect Brahms to be a great composer of string quartets, but he struggled with them compared to other forms.


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