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Mendelssohn represents the classicist trend within the European Romantic Movement; he worshipped Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, and he was a fastidious craftsman, his serene and elegant musical expression reflecting his orderly and conservative mind. He wrote his three piano quartets when he was an adolescent, the second in f minor in 1823 when he was fourteen.

The Allegro molto opens with the first theme stated by the strings and punctuated by the piano. A brief comment by the piano leads to a spirited transition to the second more lyrical theme; based on a descending A-flat major scale, it is announced first by the piano and then repeated by the strings. As the movement progresses the piano carries little of the thematic material but instead provides virtuosic configurations to support the development of the two themes in the strings. In the sparkling coda, however, the piano creates a lively dance, followed by cascades of arpeggios and broken chords that end the movement in a brilliant flourish.

In a reverse of the first movement's design, the solo piano introduces the Adagio's leisurely theme in the warm key of D-flat major. A restatement of the first theme in the strings with piano accompaniment builds to a dramatic moment in which ostinatos and tremolos in the piano accompany the strings' statement of the placid second theme in A-flat major. Then in a series of surprise harmonic shifts, the piano's undulating broken chords support a hushed melody in the strings. As the movement draws to an end, the piano offers an elegant and highly ornamented version of the first theme over repeated chords in the strings.

Mendelssohn replaces the traditional minuet or scherzo with an Intermezzo in this quartet. The term intermezzo originally described light musical entertainment alternating with the acts of early Italian tragedies; later the term came to mean "incidental music." An interlude of sorts, this movement is less than four minutes long. While the piano dominates the first section, in the second section it plays only broken chord accompaniments to the strings' melodic lines.

Mendelssohn marks the last movement Allegro molto vivace. Standing alone as a marking, vivace means faster than allegro, so here Mendelssohn leaves little doubt that he wants this music to be breathless. Unlike earlier movements, piano and strings are now equal partners as they dance through the principal theme of this playful perpetuo moto. They are often in dialogue as the music whirls forward, leading to a coda in which the piano's broken octaves and the strings' infectious melodies conclude in twelve dramatic chords.

Martinu's First Piano Quartet was completed in the same year as his six symphonies-- the works which taken together form his central achievement. It is a mature composition, written shortly after his settlement in the United States and nearly two decades after his departure from his native Czechoslovakia where he had studied with Joseph Suk, one of Dvorak's students. Blacklisted by the Nazis, Martinu moved to Jamaica, New York in 1941.

In his notes for the Garth Newell Piano Quartet's recording of the Quartet, Stephen Soderberg of the Music Division of the Library of Congress comments on Martinu's compositional techniques. "The entire quartet," he says, "is full of common early twentieth-century harmonic techniques--parallel fourths, chords created from stacking thirds and fourths and so on--nothing that, taken alone, is difficult for our ears today." One listening to the work is not enough, he warns, because of the intricate interrelationships among musical ideas in the movements. The "work as a whole only makes sense in the last movement" because of the tendency of twentieth century composers to use prefiguration, a process in which seemingly irrelevant materials introduced earlier in a work only become relevant near the end. Four or five listenings to the last movement followed by listening to the entire quartet, Soderberg says, enable the listener to connect musical events that are often separated by great distances temporally.

Soderberg offers insight into how the quartet is constructed musically. The first movement quickly introduces a series of themes, the first a terse three-note motive passed between violin and viola. Although it recurs frequently throughout the movement, this urgent declamatory motive quickly gives way to a more subdued "sinuous" idea; shared between the strings in its first appearance, this theme will form the basis of the last movement. No sooner is this second theme established than the cello introduces yet another idea, this one showing traces of Moravian folksong, an influence from Martinu's childhood. Later, the subdued second theme returns and builds to a climax in which the piano plays the opening motive in heavy chords. A reprise of this motive in the strings concludes the movement.

Throughout the first movement, piano and strings share equally in the presentation of ideas; in contrast, the Adagio begins with an extended passionate trio for strings alone that concludes with a brief cello cadenza. The piano appears in a mysterious middle section playing "rapid roulade-like surfaces over muted strings" (Soderberg), but it soon falls silent, allowing the strings to complete their trio.

In a reverse of the instrumentation of the Adagio, the Allegretto opens softly with the piano solo in a theme that Soderberg says, creates a "gentle rocking feeling--not the sleep-inducing regular rocking of a cradle, but the mesmerizing, irregular rocking of a rowboat tied to a pier." If we extend the rocking boat analogy, we can hear the entire movement as "what happens to the boat as the water becomes agitated, calm, placid, churning."

Martinu's tempo markings for this movement reveal its five-part structure to the listener. After the piano introduces the rocking theme (poco allegro), the four instruments develop it with increasingly luxuriant harmony. The tempo quickens (allegro) as upward-rushing scales are passed between the instruments. At the point of the allegro's main climax the subdued second theme from the first movement of the quartet appears fortissimo. A brief andante follows with trills in the piano and arpeggios in the strings. As the andante fades, the rocking theme returns in the piano and strings (allegretto), building to a climax that concludes the work (allegro).

Brahms composed this Quartet in 1859 when he was in his late twenties; at its first performance in 1861 in Hamburg, Clara Schumann was the pianist. In 1862 Brahms included the Quartet on the program for his Vienna debut as a composer and pianist; it won him public favor immediately. William Murdoch explains that the g minor owes its appeal to the "boldness of the themes in the first movement, the charm and delicacy of the Intermezzo and trio, the majestic grandeur of the Andante with its powerful climax, and the Hungarian dash of the Finale."

In the Allegro the piano announces the g minor first subject expressively. Later, after the cello formally announces the second subject, harmonic shifts color the development of these two ideas. The coda begins softly, swelling to a dramatic climactic outburst that fades into the quiet ending of the movement.

The tender and mysterious Intermezzo in c minor opens with violin and viola singing the long plaintive melody over pulsating notes, like a heartbeat, in the cello. The mood throughout is essentially quiet as piano and strings engage in dialogue. The violin announces a second, lighter subject, after which the first subject returns to complete the section, the cello's heartbeat continuing throughout. After the more animated music of the trio, the intermezzo is repeated in its entirety, ending with a coda that Murdoch describes as a "wisp of smoke."

The Andante con moto is "one big song rapturously growing in devotional fervor." The first section's opening melody is broad and lovely; in contrast, the music of the second section marches with military precision to a grand climax, after which the original subject returns. A simple coda ends the movement on a note of contentment.

A breathless "Rondo in Hungarian Style" concludes the Quartet. Here, for the first time, Brahms brings his love of the rhythms of gypsy bands into his larger concerted works. Four distinct themes comprise the main musical material, which is jubilant in the extreme. The tempo markings indicate the composer's intentions that this music proceed with abandon: presto--meno presto--molto presto. The energy of the rondo and the brilliance of the writing, especially for the piano, leave no doubt as to why this has been the most popular movement since the Quartet's first performance. Brahms' friend, German composer and violinist Joseph Joachim who had earlier written a "Hungarian Concerto" dedicated to Brahms wrote: "You have outstripped me of my own territory by a considerable track." Arnold Schöenberg, who acknowledged his debt to Brahms' technique of "developing variation" and who founded the Second Viennese School, orchestrated the g minor quartet for full orchestra, including elaborate percussion, as Brahms' Symphony No. 5.