Antonín Dvořák - Piano Quintet No. 1, Op. 5

Composer: Antonín Leopold Dvořák (8 September 1841 -- 1 May 1904)
Performers: Sviatoslav Richter (piano),
Borodin Quartet: Mikhail Kopelman (violin I), Andrei Abramenkov (violin II), Dmitri Shebalin (viola), Valentin Berlinsky (cello)
Year of recording: 1982

Piano Quintet No. 1 in A major, B. 28 (Op. 5), written in 1872.

00:00 - I. Allegro ma non troppo
08:34 - II. Andante sostenuto
19:37 - III. Finale. Allegro con brio

If there is any real importance to Antonín Dvorák's early Piano Quintet No. 1 in A major, Op. 5, it lies in the fact that were not this piece, when all is said and done, an unsatisfying work of music, one of the crown jewels of the chamber music repertoire, Dvorák's Piano Quintet No. 2 in A major, Op. 81 [uploaded on this channel], would likely never have been composed.

The story is an interesting one. A few months after Dvorák finished Op. 5, it was given a performance and forgotten -- the composer was at that point an unknown musical figure. Many years after that, in the late 1880s, after he had made a name for himself composing Slavonic and Moravian trifles and more substantial works, Dvorák unearthed Op. 5 and started to tinker with it -- he often revised early works, with varying degrees of success. He found, however, that he could not remake the music into something he liked, so he abandoned the work once again and immediately started composing a new piano quintet in the same key. Many decades and several major wars would go by before the Op. 5 Quintet was again unearthed and finally published.

The three-movement Piano Quintet, Op. 5 will probably always remain a novelty piece, but it does contain some moments of fine music. There is a pleasing sway to the opening movement, and some lovely instrumental songs in the central Andante; the third movement gallops along energetically, if perhaps a bit clumsily.