This youthful work had a difficult birth. Brahms introduced it as a string quintet in 1862, but violinist Joseph Joachim found the music too weighty to be supported by strings and suggested recasting it for piano. So Brahms fashioned it into a sonata for two pianos, but this version didn't satisfy pianist Clara Schumann, who persuaded Brahms to bring strings back into the picture. The final transformation, for piano and string quartet, was finished in the fall of 1864; Brahms published it with a dedication to Princess Anna of Hesse—not unusual for a young composer seeking patronage, but also perhaps something of a slight to Joachim and Clara Schumann, who had had such a hand in its multi-stage genesis. The piano quintet displays young Brahms at his least risk-averse; the overall effect is often brash despite episodes of generous lyricism, and the use of themes and whipcrack changes in harmony seem impulsive, although Brahms is careful to thread certain motivic elements, particularly descending semitones, through all the movements in an effort to achieve structural unity. (This was an idea Brahms picked up from Beethoven's Appassionata sonata.) Cunningly, Brahms begins by lulling listeners into complacency with a restrained statement of the first movement's initial theme. Soon, though, the theme erupts with energy, whereupon the music slips into the unexpected key of C sharp minor for the second subject. Brahms subjects this material to a wayward development, and in the recapitulation he shifts the second theme into F sharp minor. The second movement, Adagio, is an episode of serenity, although it is always open to harmonic instability; it's based on a faintly Slavic melody with a wistful harmonization. The Scherzo begins with low pizzicato cello notes, a launching pad for the syncopated main theme that creeps up through the strings and soon explodes into a robust, minor-key march. The contrasting trio section is in the comforting key of C major and manages to create a flowing, lyrical interlude out of what is essentially a fanfare figure. After an ominous introduction, the finale builds into a fast rondo with the arrival of an impetuous but quiet theme over a nervous, almost galloping accompaniment. The first violin ushers in a second subject, slower and somewhat pleading. Brahms knocks these themes back and forth rather than supplying a formal development section, and then overlaps many of the movement's—and the entire quintet's—principal motifs in a Presto coda.

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