Pianist Wu Han and her husband, David Finkel, cellist with the world-renowned Emerson String Quartet, are regarded by their peers as the Power Couple of Chamber Music. And no wonder! When they are not performing as a duo or with their chamber groups for nine months of the year, they are the force behind Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Society. This week, they return to Washington with the ESQ for a program of Haydn’s Quartet in F Major, Brahms’ Piano Quartet in G Minor and Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E-flat Major.

They have great fondness in their hearts for the Schumann Quintet because it was their introduction to one another. They first met shortly after Wu arrived from Taiwan. Finkel came along with the prize she won in 1982 at a Hartt School student competition: an opportunity to play Schumann’s Quintet with the school’s chamber ensemble in residence, the Emerson String Quartet. Their musical relationship turned to thoughts of romance, and they were married in 1985.