I'm looking for recommendations of quintets with either two strings and three winds (or brass, but, apart from French Horn, I doubt you get much of that before the 20rth c.) or three winds and two strings. Any instrumentation, but not involving piano or solo plus string quartet. If there's a four winds plus one string piece from our period I'd be interested as well.
Thanks.
A look through Cobbetts or The Merton catalogue or the Hawkins archive which is catalogued by my self in two different ways, Composer or type and number of instruments.
I can't think of any such quintets off hand, sung or unsung....
More instruments yes (like Beethoven's Sextet and Schubert's Octet).
You mention 3 winds and 2 strings twice (3 winds and 2 strings, or 2 strings and 3 winds.) I'm guessing this was a typo, but please correct me if only 3 winds and 2 strings will do. If 2 winds and 3 strings are ok, try Victor Lefebvre's 2-flute quintet -
parts at IMSLP (http://imslp.org/wiki/Quintet_for_Two_Flutes_and_Strings,_Op.5_(Lefebvre,_Victor)). (apparently published around the 1860s. Since he died in 1840, it's at best early or mid-Romantic, anycase.)
If you can extend your range back to the classical era, IMSLP has several more examples (try the "category walker".)
Eric
Glazunov: String quintet
Coleridge-Taylor: Nonet
Bax: Nonet
Holbrooke: Eilean Shona
Quote from: eschiss1 on Sunday 19 August 2012, 02:45
You mention 3 winds and 2 strings twice (3 winds and 2 strings, or 2 strings and 3 winds.)
Oops-- sorry about that. Yes, I meant 3 winds/2 strings OR 3 strings/2 winds (or 4 winds/1 string, though I did not expect any examples of this).
Thanks for the suggestions; the relative dearth of them has confirmed my idea that these combinations were quite rare prior to the 20th C, unlike the broader ranges found in larger ensembles or quintets with piano. Given the large number of chamber players in domestic situations, I wonder why there weren't more unusual combinations at this time.
Minacciosa- Glazunov's quintet is for strings only, not a mixed quintet. Coleridge-Taylor's Nonet has piano and isn't a quintet, hence doesn't qualify. Does Eilean Shona exist in some version other than for one clarinet and strings? If not, that doesn't count either... Bax's nonet isn't a quintet either.
All true. Enthusiasm for the music got the better of me.