Piano Quintet (Schnittke)

The Piano Quintet by Alfred Schnittke is a five-movement work for piano and string quartet composed 1972–1976. It was later arranged for symphony orchestra at the request of Gennady Rozhdestvensky and retitled In Memoriam...

When Schnittke's mother died in 1972, he decided to compose a work in her memory. Initially he devised a number of ideas, many of which were either later used in his Requiem, which he had been working on concurrently with the Piano Quintet, or were discarded. Progress on the quintet's first movement moved along rapidly, but soon reached an impasse after its completion. He did not resume work on the Piano Quintet until 1975, by which point his music had changed significantly. He completed and premiered it in 1976.

Rozhdestvensky later heard a recording of the Piano Quintet, which he felt needed to be transcribed for orchestra in order to fully realize its potential. Schnittke at first responded noncommittally to his suggestion, but eventually agreed to make an orchestral version, which he completed in 1979. The premiere of In Memoriam... followed on December 20, 1979.

The Piano Quintet and In Memoriam... are both considered among the pivotal works in Schnittke's career.