Woodwind Quintet Repertoire

[hornteacher]

The woodwind quintet combination of instruments (flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon) has always been a wonderful sound in my opinion.  If one wanted to build a repertoire of music for woodwind quintet, what are some of the staple pieces?

[71 dB]

Carl Nielsen - Wind Quintet Op. 43 (FS 100)

Young Elgar's music for Wind Quintet has lot's of charm but there is 2nd flute instead of horn.

[Scarpia]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodwind_quintet

[jochanaan]

The Danzi and Reicha quintets, certainly, and the Nielsen.  There's also a lovely Hovhaness quintet (I forget the opus number now).  And if you're up for a challenge, there's Summer Music by Barber and the lovely, neoclassical Partita by Irving Fine.  I remember hearing another Barber quintet once, but I can't tell you much about it.

And just for fun, there's "Three Shanties" by Malcolm Arnold.

[Franco]

Schoenberg Wind Quintet, Op. 26

[DavidRoss]

Love this ensemble and wish it had received attention comparable to that lavished on string quartets and piano trios.

Faves include the Barber, Nielsen, and Fine already mentioned, plus:
Carter's WW5tet
Carter's 8 Etudes and a Fantasy
Schuller's Suite for WW5tet
Hindemith's Kleine Kammermusik, op. 2
Milhaud's La Cheminee du Roi René
Rochberg's To the Dark Wood
and also
Janáček's Mládí for WW6tet
and
Wm. Schuman's Dances: Divertimento for WW5tet & Percussion

[Franco]

George Perle, one of my favorite composers, has written four.

[Guido]

My favourite is Barber's summer music. Though its very very hard - as was typical of Barber, he asked the comissioning party to play their entire repertoire to him and then tailored the work to their particular strengths (and usually pushed them a bit furthur!)

And Fine's is also very... well... fine.

[Dana]

Love this ensemble and wish it had received attention comparable to that lavished on string quartets and piano trios.

    Word. Every time I hear Shostakovich's symphonies I wonder why he never wrote one. I'm sure it would be worth having one fewer string quartet.

[The new erato]

Finn Mortensen's Quintet (on an Aurora disc) is very fine and should be heard by devotees of Nielsen's glorious Quintet.

And BTW; why is there a horn in a woodwind quintet? I'm condused by the etymology here.

[DavidRoss]

...why is there a horn in a woodwind quintet?

Because it sounds good?

[Scarpia]

I'm sure it would be worth having one fewer string quartet.

Blasphemy!

[BMW]

Mozart's quintets!

[jochanaan]

Finn Mortensen's Quintet (on an Aurora disc) is very fine and should be heard by devotees of Nielsen's glorious Quintet.

And BTW; why is there a horn in a woodwind quintet? I'm condused by the etymology here.

In the immortal word of Rev Tevye (strike up Fiddler on the Roof music):

"Traditio-o-on!"

[PaulSC]

Just a quick note for folks browsing this thread that I've posted information in another thread about a large archive of freely downloadable wwq (and related) music.

[Gurn Blanston]

Finn Mortensen's Quintet (on an Aurora disc) is very fine and should be heard by devotees of Nielsen's glorious Quintet.

And BTW; why is there a horn in a woodwind quintet? I'm condused by the etymology here.

Because it was originally not "woodwind" quintet, but "Bläserquintett" or "Wind Quintet". The wood didn't enter into it.

[Brian]

I once wrote a piece for five contrabassoons... I called it a breakwind quintet.

[karlhenning]

One piece which (it appears) you won't hear until 50 years after the composer is dead, is my Counting Sheep (Or, the Dreamy Abacus of Don Quijote) for woodwind quintet & piano.

Anyone who is alive at that time can tell me if he thinks the piece any good.

[snyprrr]

How did I miss this Thread?