Timothy Reyn­ish

The stand­ard book of ref­er­ence for all con­duc­ted wind cham­ber ensembles is An Annot­ated Guide to Wind Cham­ber Music: For Six to Eight­een Play­ers by Rod­ney Win­ther of the Col­lege Con­ser­vat­ory of Music, Uni­ver­sity of Cin­cin­nati, pub­lished by Warner Broth­ers in 2004. Win­ther gives us over 350 pages of notes on dozens of large scale works for wind, with his own per­sonal list of Top 101 Com­pos­i­tions, indices by Com­poser and by Instru­ment­a­tion, list­ing of all works by size of ensemble, includ­ing works with soloists and with voices, a list­ing of end notes and finally Pub­lisher Inform­a­tion. Every lib­rary and wind cham­ber music player or con­ductor should have a copy.

The world’s most com­plete list­ing of works for double quin­tet is on the web site by Cathy Ger­hart: http://faculty.washington.edu/gerhart/dwqbibliography/
gerhart@u.washington.edu
ncgerhart@qwest.net

There are thirty four pieces for double wind quin­tet lis­ted, twelve of which make Rod’s Top 101. My selec­tion of works which I have in my lib­rary, have con­duc­ted and would recom­mend col­leagues to pro­gramme are as follows:

Ben­nett, Richard Rod­ney Reflec­tions on a C16th Tune Novello/Schirmer (17.00)
Bern­ard, Emile Diver­tisse­ment Kalmus or Dur­and (22.30)
Bird, Arthur Ser­en­ade Mar­gun (21.30)
Bird, Arthur Suite in D Mar­gun (26.00)
Caplet, Andre Suite Persanne Mas­ters Music (12.00)
Cas­ade­sus, Fran­cois Lon­don Sketches Salabert (10.00)
Dvorak arr Sheen Czech Suite Mas­ters Music (21.00)
Ellerby, Mar­tin Diver­ti­mento Stu­dio Music (18.00)
Enescu, Georges Dix­tuor Kalmus or Salabert (20.00)
Fran­caix, Jean Neuf Pieces Cara­c­ter­istiques Schott (12.45)
Fran­caix, Jean Sept Danses from Les Mal­heurs Schott (13.00)
Gipps, Ruth Sea­scapes Warner Bros (10.00)
Janacek arr Sheen Lachian Dances Mas­ters Music (10.00)
Luty­ens, Eliza­beth Music for Wind Schott (11.00)
McCabe, John Sym­phony for 10 Wind Nov­ello (18.00)
Mil­haud, Darius Sym­phony No 5 Kalmus (6.55)
Poulenc arr Fran­caix Musique pour faire plaisir Schott (9.40)
Raff, Joachim Sin­foni­etta Mas­ters Music (25.00)
Wilder, Alec Ser­en­ade Mar­gun (12.00)

Every­one of course knows the Petite Sym­phonie of Gounod, writ­ten for the great vir­tu­oso Taffanel, but few know the won­der­ful Con­certo for Flute and Eight Instru­ments by Wil­liam Alwyn (1905–1987), a won­der­ful romantic show-piece. That led me onto the next page of Rod Winther’s book and a reminder of the superb Instant Music by Kurt Schwert­sig for solo flute and an ensemble of 232:3221. Pub­lished by Boosey and Hawkes this is again a great solo work for the flute.

Many play­ers in Europe will be unfa­mil­iar with the music of Arthur Bird (1856–1923), the Amer­ican romantic com­poser, a pupil of Liszt. His music with that of Emile Bern­ard, Joachim Raff, Enescu, Caplet and Cas­ade­sus cre­ates a little oasis of ori­ginal romantic rep­er­toire for smal­ler ensemble, great to change the pace and style of a concert.

For those look­ing for wit and good humour, try any work by the incom­par­able Jean Fran­caix and also the sadly neg­lected works of Alec Wilder. I do not actu­ally know this Ser­en­ade, but I like everything by Wilder that I know. My first encounter was his Horn Belt Boo­gie for horn quar­tet, harp­si­chord and rhythm, which I had on an old vinyl record played by Gun­ther Schuller (if I remem­ber over forty years cor­rectly) with Mitch Miller’s band on the other side play­ing My Little Black Eyed Suzy.

So to the 20th cen­tury and why not cel­eb­rate the cen­ten­ary of Eliza­beth Luty­ens with a rare per­form­ance of her astrin­gent Music for Wind. She was one of England’s first con­tem­por­ary com­posers, and had a huge influ­ence on Richard Rod­ney Ben­nett. His recent Reflec­tions on a 16th Cen­tury Tune how­ever is far from con­tem­por­ary and will charm any audi­ence while present­ing play­ers with teas­ing but not insur­mount­able prob­lems. Milhaud’s Mini­ature Sym­phony no 5 is in three move­ments – Rude – Lent – Viol­ent , and reminds me of the dis­son­ant energy of Varese, no charm here. It is good that Rod Win­ther has res­cued Ruth Gipps’s Sea­scape. It is in one move­ment of dif­fer­ing sec­tions, like John McCabe’s Sym­phony for 10 Wind Instru­ments and both are well worth explor­ing. Finally, if you enjoy Mar­tin Ellerby’s band scores you will enjoy his Diver­ti­mento, and Gra­ham Sheen, prin­cipal bas­soon with the BBC Sym­phony Orches­tra, has made two excel­lent tran­scrip­tions of romantic Slav works by Dvorak and Janacek, as reli­able as ever.

Timothy Reyn­ish
www.timreynish.com