Four Viennese String Quintets

This edition includes quintets from the time of Mozart and Beethoven, works by Franz Anton Hoffmeister, Ignaz Pleyel, Franz Krommer, and Adalbert Gyrowetz composed between ca. 1785 and 1802. The volume includes a substantial introduction describing the history of the quintet and charting the rise of the Viennese quintet in particular. This rich repertory, previously little studied, casts new light on Mozart's and Beethoven's contributions to the genre, placing them in the context of various chamber music traditions, and highlighting contemporaneous distinctions among the "classical," brilliant, and concertant styles of string chamber music at the end of the eighteenth century. After the string quartet, the string quintet was the second most popular chamber music genre of the time, and its popularity continued well into the nineteenth century, until the time of Brahms.