Top Five Wind Pieces

In three centuries' repertoire of classical music -- to ignore that vast array of boring late Renaissance and early Baroque output -- there exists one genre for which I have developed a particular affinity. For our purposes, I'll call that genre wind music, and in its ranks I don't include "band" music, or that relatively modern corpus spanning from Sousa to the present. Wind music consists of pieces for chamber ensembles usually constituted of woodwinds and French horn. Works for mixed ensemble (e.g. a small group of winds and strings) also fall into the category. The size of the ensemble usually varies between three and eight players, although certain masterworks are written for larger groups, such as nonet or 13 musicians. It is difficult to give the genre quantitative parameters because the nature of wind music is defined more by a particular sound (which I will address shortly) than by instrumental configuration and size.

The heyday of wind music came sometime between Mozart and Beethoven, but its buildup predated 1756, and its denouement lingered into the late 19th century. Gems of the wind music repertoire have since been composed independently of a popular trend toward the musical medium.

Hapsburg nobles loved music for winds, and they sponsored both commissions and court wind ensembles. Mozart wrote a great body of music for wind instruments, including concerti (for oboe, French horn, clarinet, flute, and bassoon), serenades, basset horn trios (the basset horn is a primitive lower pitched member of the clarinet family), and wind quintets (defined as flute, oboe, clarinet, French horn, and bassoon).

Audiences embraced the compositional mode. Beethoven's Septet for Winds and Strings was so popular that he felt it obscured the significance of his later works. When the Septet took London by storm in 1815, he exclaimed, "That damn work; I wish it could be burned!" Almost 50 years later, Walt Whitman heard the piece and waxed metaphoric in delight. "Dainty abandon, sometimes as if Nature laughing on a hillside in the sunshine; serious and firm monotonies, as of winds; a horn sounding through the tangle of the forest, and the dying echoes; soothing floating of waves, but presently rising in surges, angrily lashing, muttering, heavy; piercing peals of laughter, for interstices; now and then weird, as Nature herself is in certain moods -- but mainly spontaneous, easy, careless…."

Most wind music is lighter than string music -- especially most pieces written for string quartet. Wind instruments are mellifluous and create exquisite overtones in harmony, whereas, at least to my ears, string quartets often emphasize unpleasant and melodramatic sawing and scratching. A wind ensemble's breathy weight can be exploited to create an amazing propulsive effect. Look to the third movement of Mozart's Gran Partita for a soothing but unstoppable impetus at a slow tempo; Hummel's Wind Octet and Partita and Mendelssohn's Military Overture (composed at age 15) both highlight the ability of a wind group to jump on dotted rhythms with powerful momentum.

The five central instruments of wind music (flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, and bassoon) possess strikingly different sounds. In contrast, the four primary stringed instruments (violin, viola, cello, and double bass) exhibit matched timbres when playing notes in the same register; they primarily distinguish themselves by playing in different registers. While stringed instruments interact in consort like members of an immediate family, wind instruments resemble the disparate characters of a bustling metropolis.

So here is a list of my favorite wind music:

Close call: Serenade for winds and strings, op. 44 (1878), for two oboes, two clarinets, two horns, two bassoons, cello, and double bass, by Antonin Dvorak.

Starting with a memorable opening march that would sound equally convincing on pipe organ, Dvorak infuses each of the serenade's four movements with folksy Slavonic tunes. Brahms loved the piece, and it surely helped the Czech composer gain a foothold in the international music scene.

5. Grand Nonet, op. 31 (1813), for flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon, violin, viola, cello, and double bass, by Louis Spohr.

A traditionalist composer who introduced radical innovations to classical music (such as use of the baton for conducting), Spohr constructed his Nonet in a familiar fashion. The opening movement is in sonata form; a scherzo and then an adagio follow (this common inversion of the two movements is common in Romantic music); a bubbling vivace finale wraps it up. Spohr's simple chromatic theme of the first movement resurfaces in three of the other four, providing a splendid sense of continuity.

The winds and strings are often treated as two sections of the ensemble, and in certain parts, the melody is monopolized by violin. But the most important facet of Spohr's writing is a soloistic recycling of thematic material between instruments, a feature shared by many great compositions with important wind parts.

Andrew de Alvare discusses how the piece was enjoyed by aristocrats in the Age of Napoleon. "The demanding and sometimes virtuosic parts required professional musicians available only to the wealthy, but also made the piece[s] [Spohr's Wind Octet and Nonet] attractive to a wider audience. While certain amateur ensembles did perform these pieces, they were not as popular as the related works by Beethoven [the Septet] and Schubert [the Octet]. The sophistication of these two works by Spohr, their consequent aristocratic appeal, and most of all, their popularity, are indicated by their performance in 1814 for European heads of state at the Congress of Vienna." Spohr's Nonet, permeated with subdued sensibility and subtle sarcasm, fits perfectly my conception of restoration Europe’s ranking elite.

4. Octet, D. 803 (1824), for clarinet, horn, bassoon, two violins, viola, cello, and double bass, by Franz Schubert.

Often deemed classical music's greatest melodist alongside Mozart, most critics ignore the genius of Schubert's rhythmic intensity. The combination of rhythmic drive and melodic passion makes Schubert's Ninth one of the most perfect symphonies ever composed. Look at his “Wanderer” Fantasy, "Death and the Maiden" Quartet, or "Trout" Quintet. Why are they all staples of the repertoire? Persistent, unrelenting rhythm, plus a spiffy tune. Let me describe a movement from his Octet, written as I listen to a recording by the Gaudier Ensemble.

A sudden tremolo chill in the bass punctuated by pungent wind chords launches the finale of this archetypical octet. The ensuing Allegro plods forth like a pastoral peasant, persistently shrugging off memories of the minor key opening. Schubert, with typical melodic flair, keeps your foot tapping until the unexpected reemergence of the tortuous opening tremolo. The peasant journeyman doesn't ignore the warning this second time and instead picks up his tempo, sprinting home to the buoyant syncopations of arpeggiating horns.

Composed for some of the same players Beethoven had in mind for his Septet, Schubert's Octet takes after that groundbreaking work for small mixed ensemble in certain other aspects. Both reach back to the proud 18th century divertimento tradition; both use identical instruments, except for Schubert's addition of an extra violin; both are emotionally unburdened; and both were written so as not to exceed the capabilities of small groups of musically inclined friends.

3. Quintet for Piano and Winds, K. 452 (1784), for piano, oboe, clarinet, horn, and bassoon, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

"I consider it to be the best work I have ever composed," wrote Wolfgang to his father after the quintet's premiere in April of 1784. Mozart's pleasure was well-founded, since his composition remains enjoyable to hear and play. After assembling a group to read through the piece at the end of last academic year, I concluded that the Beethoven quintet for the same instruments sounds more difficult, but the Mozart quintet is much harder to play. Motifs subtly alter their shading as they pass between the wind instruments, with perpetual support provided by piano.

The first movement opens at a tempo marked largo. A serene piano melody accented by heavy wind chords fluidly dissolves into dissonance and back to calm, before ending on a regal chord and launching into the main allegro section. Piano once again provides melodic fodder, but this time, Mozart’s winds enter to elaborate the keyboard’s simplistic theme with stately flourishes. Alternation between innocence and pomp characterizes the whole movement; the horn finally calls it quits with an exclamation of pointed triplets.

The quintet continues with a chillingly beautiful Larghetto. A tricky melody on oboe is supported by the lower winds, but the movement's exposition soon cedes to soloistic exchanges between all the instruments. After gradually reincorporating the oboe’s original statement into a building chorus, the ensemble prematurely diminishes to a soft cadence. An abrupt minor key inclusion gives a brief reality check. But the oboe's relaxing dream refuses to dissipate, and the movement ends with a gentle sigh.

Mozart’s closing Allegretto begins with a lighthearted tune in the piano, soon redoubled by the appearance of winds. Countermelody enters as a flippant phrase that provides a launching pad for numerous variations. My favorite moment comes near the end, when the music grinds to a halt. A fugue gains force in the winds and spills into the nervous trill of an oboe before releasing its energy into a delightful march-like finish.

2. Sextet for Piano and Wind Quintet, op. 100 (1932-1939), by Francis Poulenc.

Poulenc was an insidious composer, a bourgeois nobleman who never composed for money but who frequently mocked cosmopolitan France through inane and sarcastic works. Surprisingly, he was also a devout Catholic capable of producing deeply moving music. Throughout his oeuvre, these opposing traits surface in close proximity. Often they are juxtaposed in one brief movement, like the first movement of his Sonata for Clarinet and Piano.

Individually, Poulenc’s Sextet is only moderately challenging. But a successful combination of the lines in ensemble is a tremendous harmonic and rhythmic challenge. Poulenc was a first-rate composer for winds, because his phrase lengths perfectly accommodate the instruments’ dependence on breathing. Poulenc’s colorful style accents the character of each instrument, and his bizarre harmonies produce exotic overtones.

The Sextet’s first movement commences with a raucous crescendo of speedy runs (in parallel tenths, if I remember correctly). From this cacophony, a lunatic melody bursts forth at backbreaking pace. One slow respite is generously provided in the chaotic development. Poulenc’s middle movement is titled “Divertissement,” reflecting its naïve and playful nature. Bittersweet shades are occasionally introduced, and the movement ends with staccato grunts low in the bassoon, but it is mostly frivolous, especially in a startling and jaunty interlude. The last movement is a rondo. At first, Poulenc contrasts one vivacious with another lush melody, but he ultimately abandons the witty exchange for a plangent C major conclusion.

1. Serenade no. 10, "Gran Partita." K. 361/371a (1783 or 1784), for two oboes, two clarinets, two basset horns, four French horns, two bassoons, and double bass, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

In the movie “Amadeus,” Salieri first encounters the child prodigy of Salzburg at a performance of his "Gran Partita" serenade in the court of Joseph II. That "great music for winds of a very special kind," to quote a Viennese newspaper describing the piece in 1784, was an important work in Mozart's life, being the first he wrote upon moving to the Hapsburg capital.

Let's leave a brief description of the third movement largo to F. Murray Abraham's Salieri. "On the page it looked nothing. The beginning simple, almost comic. Just a pulse -- bassoons and basset horns -- like a rusty squeezebox. And then suddenly -- high above it -- an oboe. A single note, hanging there unwavering, until a clarinet took over and sweetened it into a phrase of such delight. This was no composition by a performing monkey... This was a music I'd never heard. Filled with such longing, such unfulfillable longing. It seemed to me that I was hearing a voice of God."

Mozart perfected the use of wind instruments as actors in a cast. Musicologist Alfred Einstein writes an excellent summary of the instruments’ roles in the "Gran Partita" and expounds on two of the movements. "The fascination of the work emanates from its sheer sound. There is a continuous alternation between tutti and soli, in which the part of the soli is usually allotted to the two clarinets; a constant reveling in new combinations: a quartet of clarinets and basset horns, a sextet of oboes, basset horns, and bassoons over the supporting double bass; oboe, basset horn, and bassoon in unison, with accompaniment -- a mixture of timbres and transparent clarity at the same time; an 'over-lapping' of all the tone-colors, especially in the development section of the first movement. No instrument is treated in true concertante fashion, but each one can, and strives to, distinguish itself; and just as in a buffo finale by Mozart each person is true to his own character, so each instrument here is true to its own character -- the oboe to its aptness for cantabile melodies, the bassoon likewise and also, in chattering triplets, to its comic properties. The two pairs of horns furnish the basic tone-color; but the fact that Mozart uses only the first pair in the first slow movement, a Notturno, is an indication of his supreme taste and skill: this is a scene from Romeo under starry skies, a scene in which longing, grief, and love are wrung like a distillation from the beating hearts of the lovers. The counterpart to this lyricism is found in a 'Romance' whose sentimentality is carried towards the point of absurdity by means of an oddly burlesque Allegretto, an 'alternativo.'" And nothing sends chills down my spine like the penultimate movement's final variation and segue into the conclusive roaring Rondo.

Reading through the Library of Congress facsimile along with my favorite recording (members of the Berlin Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta), I noticed that the "Gran Partita" still presents challenges to the modern clarinetist, alongside untold delights.