The String Quintet No. 1 in A major, Op. 18, was composed by Felix Mendelssohn in 1826 and revised in 1832. The piece is scored for two violins, two violas and cello.
The quintet was written in 1826, shortly after the completion of the String Octet, when Mendelssohn was just seventeen years old. Dissatisfied with the original minuet second movement, in 1832 he substituted a slow movement composed in memory of his friend the violinist Eduard Rietz. It is this revised version of the quintet which was published in Bonn the same year.
Like all of Mendelssohn's string quartets, this work has four movements:
A typical performance lasts just under 30 minutes.
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The Piano Quintet in E-flat major, Op. 44, by Robert Schumann was composed in 1842 and received its first public performance the following year. 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. Composed for piano and string quartet, the work revolutionized the instrumentation and musical character of the piano quintet and established it as a quintessentially Romantic genre.
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Franz Schubert's final chamber work, the String Quintet in C major is sometimes called the "Cello Quintet" because it is scored for a standard string quartet plus an extra cello instead of the extra viola which is more usual in conventional string quintets. It was composed in 1828 and completed just two months before the composer's death. The first public performance of the piece did not occur until 1850, and publication occurred three years later in 1853. Schubert's only full-fledged string quintet, it has been praised as "sublime" or "extraordinary" and as possessing "bottomless pathos," and is generally regarded as Schubert's finest chamber work as well as one of the greatest compositions in all chamber music.
The Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 56, MWV N 18, known as the Scottish, is a symphony by Felix Mendelssohn, composed between 1829 and 1842.
Antonín Dvořák's String Quintet No. 2 in G major, Op. 77 (B. 49), was originally composed in early March 1875 and first performed on March 18, 1876 in Prague at the concert of the Umělecká beseda.
The String Octet in E-flat major, Op. 20, MWV R 20, was written by the 16-year-old Felix Mendelssohn during the fall of 1825 and completed on October 15. Written for four violins, two violas, and two cellos, this work created a new chamber music genre. Conrad Wilson summarizes much of its reception ever since: "Its youthful verve, brilliance and perfection make it one of the miracles of nineteenth-century music." This was one of the first works of Mendelssohn to be very well received.
The String Quintet in E♭ major, Op. 97, B. 180, was composed by Antonín Dvořák during the summer he spent in Spillville, Iowa in 1893. It is a "Viola Quintet" in that it is scored for string quartet with an extra viola. It was completed in just over a month, immediately after he wrote his American String Quartet. Like the Quartet, the Quintet finely captures the inflection of Dvořák's Bohemian idiom with American inspirations. The Quintet was premiered by the Kneisel Quartet in New York on 13 January 1894 along with the second performance of the Quartet and very favorably reviewed, as comparable to Mozart. The reviewer noted that the Quintet was "of the kind about which a commentator may write a small volume without exhausting his admiration or fully describing their beauties".
Antonín Dvořák's Piano Quintet No. 2 in A major Op. 81, B. 155, is a quintet for piano, 2 violins, viola, and cello. It was composed between August 18 and October 8, 1887, and was premiered in Prague on January 6, 1888. The quintet is acknowledged as one of the masterpieces in the form, along with those of Schumann, Brahms and Shostakovich.
The String Quartet No. 1 in E-flat major, Op. 12, was composed by Felix Mendelssohn in 1829, completed in London on September 14 and possibly dedicated to Betty Pistor, a neighbor and the daughter of a Berlin astronomer.
The String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 13, was composed by Felix Mendelssohn in 1827. Written when he was 18 years old, it was, despite its official number, Mendelssohn's first mature string quartet. One of Mendelssohn's most passionate works, the A minor Quartet is one of the earliest and most significant examples of cyclic form in music.
The String Quartet No. 4 in E minor, Op. 44, No. 2, was composed by Felix Mendelssohn in 1837, and revised in 1839.
The String Quintet No. 2 in B flat major, Op. 87, was composed by Felix Mendelssohn in 1845, when Mendelssohn was around 36 years old. The piece is scored for two violins, two violas and cello.
Felix Mendelssohn composed his Viola Sonata in C minor, MWV Q 14, when he was only 14 years old. The autograph score is dated 14 February 1824. The work was not published in Mendelssohn's lifetime - in fact not until 1966 - and it was not assigned an opus number. Although he did reuse one of the themes from the minuet movement in the equivalent movement of his First Symphony.
Felix Mendelssohn's Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 49, was completed on 23 September 1839 and published the following year. The work is scored for a standard piano trio consisting of violin, cello and piano. It is one of Mendelssohn's most popular chamber works and is recognized as one of his greatest along with his Octet, Op. 20. During the initial composition of the work, Mendelssohn took the advice of fellow composer Ferdinand Hiller to revise the piano part. Hiller wrote, "with his usual conscientious earnestness when once he had made up his mind, he undertook the length and rewrite the whole pianoforte part."
The Symphony in C major, WWV 29, from 1832 is the only completed symphony of Richard Wagner.
Antonín Dvořák finished the composition of his String Quartet No. 1 in A major, Op. 2, (B. 8), one of his earliest chamber works, in March 1862.
Johannes Brahms' String Quintet No. 1 in F major, Op. 88, was composed in 1882 in the spa town of Bad Ischl, Upper Austria, and published by the firm of Fritz Simrock. It was first performed at a chamber music evening in Frankfurt on 29 December 1882.
Felix Mendelssohn wrote thirteen string symphonies between 1821 and 1823, when he was between 12 and 14 years old.. These symphonies were tributes to Classical symphonies especially by Joseph Haydn, Johann Christian Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
The String Octet in B♭ major, Op. posth., was composed by Max Bruch for four violins, two violas, cello and double bass. Completed in 1920, the year of his death, it is his last work and would not be published until 1996. The work is also known under the name Concerto for String Orchestra (Octet).
