The name Mahler is so closely associated with the symphony and Lied genres that it is little known how intensively he applied himself to chamber music during his studies. Of his numerous attempts in this field only one piano quartet composed between 1876 and 1878 has survived Œ_ and of this merely the first movement in its entirety. The latter was only rediscovered in the 1960s and first published in 1973. Even if Brahms is unmistakably his model, the quartet movement contains enough individual and also unconventional elements Œ_ such as the almost symphonic treatment of the piano Œ_ for us to incorporate it into our Urtext ranks. In addition, we have included an appendix Œñfor study purposesŒî with MahlerŒÍs fragmentary sketch for a further movement, a scherzo for the same instrumentation.
