I would really like to extend my chamber music repertoire to the piano... but I'm not sure where to start, since the piano parts in most quartets/quintets tend to be very difficult. Do any of you have ideas for piano quartets or quintets (preferably not trios, since I have a violist friend ) which are doable for someone around DipABRSM/aspiring LRSM level? I like Mozart (but nobody would want to play it with me), Brahms op. 25, both Dvorak quintets, Schumann, etc., just to give a sense of my taste Any suggestions would be appreciated!

I successfully learned the first movement of Schumann's piano quartet whilst between G8 and diploma level somewhere. The middle two movements looked easier than the first, though I didnt' actually learn them, but I would certainly think the final would be harder, I don't know how much by. I also reckoned I probably could have had a go at Dvorak's piano quartet, though I only ever glanced briefly at the music.

Josef Hoffman did a very beautiful arrangement of Chopin's piano concerto No 1 for piano and string quartet. Perhaps this would be good to try, although maybe a little on the difficult side for your level.

It can be seen here (on the same model of piano as I own ): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM3HHhqwNv8

Regards,
Wurlz

Faure, Op 15. Slightly easier than most Brahms; very attractive, more red-blooded than much of his output and with a clearer structure than his later works.

Mozart K498 - Kegelstatt Trio - find yourself a tame clarinet player!

Or Violist?

She already has one of those, that's why I suggested it

I would love to play Kegelstatt, or either of the piano quartets, for that matter, but somehow nobody else my age wants to play Mozart I will take a look at Faure op. 15 (and a closer look at Schumann/Dvorak to see if I might be able to get my fingers around them more than I had thought)

I'm almost afraid to ask, but is Shostakovich op. 57 playable? Aforementioned violist friend wants to play it and suggested it to me - I nixed it because a) I usually don't like Shostakovich, and b) I uniformly associate Shostakovich with insane difficulty But after giving it a listen, I found that I enjoyed it, and even more surprisingly that the piano part seems somewhat doable - lots of unison playing. Do you folks think it would be manageable (at sub-Argerich tempos, of course! ), or am I deluding myself?

Most of the Shostakovich Piano Quintet is easier than the Faure. The exception is the scherzo, which has two pages of a repeated two bar riff and several high-speed page turns.