Brahms: String Quartet Op. 51/1, Piano Quintet

Silke Avenhaus, piano and the Arcanto-Quartett

String Quartet op.51 No1 Piano Quintet op.34

Brahms had passed the age of forty before he finally deemed a string quartet worthy of appearing in his catalogue, as op.51. Thus he joined those composers who, like Mendelssohn, Schumann and Dvořák, had succeeded in freeing themselves from the heritage of Beethoven in this genre. The work is extremely demanding for its performers, as is the Piano Quintet op.34.