Inspired by the success of his First Piano Quartet, published in 1884, the composer began a second work in this genre only a short time later. The style is considerably more serene and individual than that of the First Piano Quartet, and both the sequence and character of the movements are more reminiscent of Schumann and Brahms. In its Andante, as Fauré later recalled, he unconsciously set to music the memories of the sound of bells in his childhood.

Through the comparison with the autograph, Fauré specialist Fabian Kolb was able to correct with this Urtext edition numerous errors of the first edition. As also in the case of the Henle edition of the First Piano Quartet, Pascal Rogé - an authority on French music - was responsible for providing the fingerings in the piano part.