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Piano quartet

A piano quartet is a chamber music composition for piano and three other instruments, or a musical ensemble comprising such instruments. Those other instruments are usually a string trio consisting of a violin, viola and cello.

Piano quartets for that standard lineup were written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Robert Schumann, Ludwig van Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, Antonín Dvořák and Gabriel Fauré among others. In the 20th century, composers have also written for more varied groups, with Anton Webern's Quartet, opus 22 (1930), for example, being for piano, violin, clarinet and tenor saxophone, and Paul Hindemith's quartet (1938) as well as Olivier Messiaen's Quatuor pour la fin du temps (1940) both for piano, violin, cello and clarinet. An early example of this can be found in Franz Berwald's quartet for piano, horn, clarinet and bassoon from 1819, his opus 1.

A rare form of piano quartets consist of two pianos with two players at each piano. This type of ensemble is informally referred to as "eight-hand piano", or "two piano eight hands". Eight-hand piano was popular in the late 19th century before the advent of recordings as it was a mechanism to reproduce and study symphonic works. Music lovers could hear the major symphonic works all in the convenience of a parlour or music hall that had two pianos and four pianists. Many of the popular works of Mozart, Schumann, Brahms and Dvořák were transcribed for two piano eight hands. The majority of 8 hand piano music consists of transcriptions, or arrangements.

List of works

The following is an incomplete list of piano quartets by famous and lesser-known composers. Ordering is by surname of composer.

A-B

C-D

E-F

G-H

  • Alfred Hill
  • The Sacred Mountain (1932)
  • Wilhelm Hill
  • Piano Quartet in E major, Op. 44 (1879)
  • Ferdinand Hiller
  • Piano Quartet No. 1 in B minor, Op. 1 (1826)
  • Piano Quartet No. 2 in F minor, Op. 3 (1830)
  • Piano Quartet No. 3 in A minor, Op. 133 (1870)
  • Franz Anton Hoffmeister
  • Piano Quartet in G major (1785)
  • Piano Quartet in B-flat major (1788)
  • Herbert Howells
  • Piano Quartet in A minor, Op. 21 (1916-1st version, 1936-2nd version)
  • Hans Huber
  • Piano Quartet No.1 in B major, Op.110 (1891/2?)
  • Piano Quartet No.2 in E major, Op.117 (1901)
  • Ferdinand Hummel
  • Piano Quartet in C-sharp minor, Op. 19 (1879)
  • Johann Nepomuk Hummel
  • Piano Quartet in G major, Op. post. (2 movements; published in 1839)
  • William Hurlstone
  • Piano Quartet in E minor, Op. 43 (1906)

I-L

  • Salomon Jadassohn
  • Piano Quartet 1 in C minor, Op.77 (1884)
  • Piano Quartet 2 in G major, Op.86 (1887)
  • Piano Quartet 3 in A minor, Op. 109 (1890)
  • Marie Jaëll
  • Piano Quartet in G minor (1875)
  • Gustav Jenner
  • Piano Quartet in F major (1905)
  • Robert Kahn
  • Piano Quartet No. 1 in b minor, Op. 14 (1891)
  • Piano Quartet No. 2 in a minor, Op. 30 (1899)
  • Piano Quartet No. 3 in c minor, Op. 41 (1904)
  • Hannah Kendall
  • Network Bed (2018)
  • Friedrich Kiel
  • Piano Quartet No. 1 in a minor, Op. 43 (1866)
  • Piano Quartet No. 2 in E major, Op. 44 (1866)
  • Piano Quartet No. 3 in G major, Op. 50 (1867)
  • Uuno Klami (1900-1961)
  • Piano Quartet in D major
  • Arnold Krug
  • Piano Quartet in C minor, Op. 17 (1879)
  • Friedrich Kuhlau
  • Piano Quartet No. 1 in C minor, Op. 32 (1820-1821)
  • Piano Quartet No. 2 in A major, Op. 50 (1822)
  • Piano Quartet No. 3 in G minor, Op. 108 (composed in 1829, published in 1833)

M

N-R

S

T-Z

List of ensembles

See also

References

Further reading

  • Basil Smallman (1994) The Piano Quartet and Quintet: Style Structure, and Scoring, New York: Oxford University Press. .

External links