String quintet

What it means

A string quintet is a work for five string instruments. Two scorings are common: the quartet with a second viola, and the quartet with a second cello. More rarely a double bass is added. The choice is no side issue — it decides whether the sound becomes fuller in the middle register or whether the foundation is reinforced, and composers make it deliberately.

Musical use

With the second viola, the texture gains a dense, warm middle register; the upper voice can unfold freely above it, and inner voices can be led more richly. With a second cello, the weight shifts downward: one cello can work as the bass while the other emerges melodically, so that tenor lines become possible. In both cases the fifth voice allows the section to be divided and two tonal groups to be set against each other. The string quintet is not to be confused with the piano quintet, in which a piano joins a quartet.

Performance practice

Clarify the distribution of roles first, especially with two instruments of the same kind: who leads at which point, who supports. Match articulation, vibrato, and tone colour of the two voices of the same kind to each other, otherwise the texture falls apart. Watch the balance, because the reinforced middle or bass register easily makes the sound dense. Rehearse in subgroups, for instance the quartet without the fifth voice and vice versa. Sit so that everyone hears and sees one another.

Bear in mind that the two common scorings pose different tasks: with two violas the difficulty lies in the clarity of the dense middle register, with two cellos in clarifying which instrument carries the bass and which the melody. Clarify this for every section. With Mozart, the scoring with two violas predominates, with Boccherini often two cellos. Brahms wrote two string quintets with two violas, op. 88 and op. 111. Sit so that everyone hears one another.

Check which scoring the score calls for, because editions occasionally offer arrangements for the respective other form.