Chamber Music

    There are few chamber works in this period to compare with those of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven a generation earlier, or Brahms a generation later.  Schumann and Mendelssohn both wrote string quartets, but their best-known chamber works make use of the piano.  Schumann's piano quintet is his most frequently played chamber work, but there are also 2 piano quartets, 3 piano trios, and 4 string quartets.  Mendelssohn's output is quite large.  It includes 2 piano trios, 3 piano quartets and one piano sextet; and 6 quartets, 2 quintets and one octet for strings.  Both composers also wrote sonatas for a solo instrument and piano.  

    The other composers referred to in this chapter were not interested in chamber music.  Mendelssohn and Schumann were more conservative, and therefore more interested in the classical forms and chamber music.