ROBERT SCHUMANN Piano Quartet op.47. Piano Quintet, op.44 Alexander Melnikov, Jerusalem Quartet

The Piano Quintet op.44 and Piano Quartet op.47 date from a brief period during which Schumann focused his attention intensively on chamber music (between June 1842 and January 1843). These works underline his wish to escape from the solo piano, now ‘too restricted’ for his overflowing imagination, as he told Clara. The Quintet, which made a powerful impression on Wagner, is probably one of his most sophisticated works, into which Schumann poured all the creative energy he derived from meticulous examination of similar works by his predecessors, especially Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Schubert.