In the early 1870s Antonín Dvorák wrote a Piano Quintet in A major that was published as Op. 5. Always dissatisfied with it, he attempted in 1887 to revise it for republication. Instead, he cast it aside and immediately set about composing a brand new piano quintet in the same key. This product, the Piano Quintet in A major, Op. 81 (now called No. 2, though Dvorák surely would not have liked to hear it called so), is a complete success and a central masterwork of Romantic-era chamber music. Written between August and early October of 1887, it is a work that now stands alongside the Brahms F minor Piano Quintet as one of the twin peaks of the repertoire written for piano and string quartet. The three legs of the Dvorák stylistic triad—Brahmsian depth and warmth, Eastern European folk flavor, and sheer melodicism—are held in perfect balance here.

The Piano Quintet, Op. 81 is in the traditional four movements (though the use of a schizophrenic dumka as the slow movement is more than a bit nontraditional): Allegro ma non tanto, Andante con moto (the dumka), Molto vivace (a scherzo), and Allegro. The cello introduces a famous melody atop a warm bed of the piano's arpeggiations at the start of the first movement; but barely a dozen bars go by before the music takes a jolting turn to the minor mode and shoots forth towards a rousing, fortissimo C major phrase (if only four bars are remembered by a listener while driving home from the concert, it will be these). A second theme area in C sharp minor provides the basis for a movement that falls essentially into the long tradition of sonata form.

The dumka was a Ukrainian lament or ballad that often contained several sections with contrasting moods; Dvorák incorporated dumky into several compositions. The dumka movement in this quintet is in F sharp minor. Its beautiful and introverted main theme is turned on its head first by a lighthearted D major interlude (Un pochettino più mosso) and then, after a reprise during which the viola plays the main tune in canon with the piano, by a fabulous Vivace during which a sprightly version of the main tune's first notes is tossed about between the players. The scherzo is called a "Furiant" in the score; at first it shows none of the metric alternations inherent in that particular Bohemian dance, but as the trio section unfolds Dvorák provides some nice three-against-four and two-against-threes rhythmic passages. The rondo finale starts with a burst of secco string eighth notes against rapid syncopation in the piano. The refrain theme thoroughly enjoys its time on center stage, hustling and bustling forward on folkish sixteenth notes.

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