I play with a decent quality woodwind quintet (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon (me), and horn). We're always looking for something new and unusual that hasn't been done before. I've been doing more and more arranging and am looking for suggestions. What I want is something tuneful, romantic that could be suited to wind quintet arranging. What I really want is something worthy that is unfamiliar to 99.999% of the listeners. Any ideas from Raff (either brother), Reinecke, Rubinstein, or any one? String quartets, piano solos, even opera arias can be viable candidates. I started thinking about a really comprehensive arrangement from Carmen until I looked it up and realized that there are a dozen of those already done! The other thing is that a score needs to be readily available, preferably at IMSLP.
Thanks!
The songs of Reynaldo Hahn would make lovely transcriptions - L'heure exquise, A Chloris, to name but two. I don't know about the availability of scores!
May I suggest "Some Shakespeare Fairy Characters" for String Quartet by Joseph Speaight and the String Quartet, Op. 60 by Litolff, both available in IMSLP.
You mention Raff. Perhaps his String Quartet No.7 Die schöne Müllerin would fit the bill? It's not the very best of his string quartets (that's No.1 IMHO), but it is a good piece which is very tuneful and has six short movements with plenty of variety of mood. I don't know how practical it would be, but a different sort of arranging challenge would be posed by his Sinfonietta for ten wind instruments. It's for the same combination as in your quintet, Martin, but (obviously) there are pairs of of them! If reductions are no problem, then I'd also highly recommend the Octet and String Sextet, both of them very high quality works indeed. IMSLP has scores for all the pieces I've mentioned.
Arranging Raff's Sinfonietta for wind quintet would indeed be a bit of a challenge. In my opinion it can't be done without losing a lot of the original composition. Ditto for the octet and even the sextet. I have done some arranging myself and in my experience the best you can choose are pieces for piano or piano duet. Theodore Gouvy has composed a lot of sonates and other pieces for piano duet and some of them are probably suitable to arrange for wind quintet.
Black's eminently sensible suggestion of trying out transcriptions of works for piano duet made me think of Rontgen's works for piano four hands. I haven't pursued the issue of scores, but I'm pretty sure they would be available without too much difficulty. A possibility? Just a suggestion, and maybe not even a sensible one.
Röntgen's Op.4 (book 1 only), op.16 and op.17 for piano duet are at IMSLP.
I've only just noticed this thread. If you are interested, I could send you the score and parts of the Divertimento for Wind Quintet which I wrote around 15 years ago. It has already been privately recorded by another quintet but I wasn't all that happy with their performance. Anyway, if you let me know you terrestrial address, I'll send it off to you. I can cerainly assure you that I only write music with tunes in it, although mine may not be the most memorable of melodies. :) It consists of 5 short movements; the outer allegros being in sonata form and the middle 3 comprising a landler, a romance and a minuet.
I wonder if it easier to arrange something like an Octet or Nonet for your ensemble? If so, maybe Heinrich Hoffman's Octet in F for string quartet, flute, clarinet, french horn, and bassoon, Op.80 (1883) is worth considering - romantic, tuneful, and unlikely to be familiar to most audiences. Lachner's Nonet might also fit the bill, but is a longer work.
Franz Lachner did indeed write at least one wind quintet. I had the sheet music for it at one time but I sent it to the ensemble that kindly recorded my divertimento for wind quintet as a thank you present.
What a really nice gesture, John. Should have made a photocopy, though.
He wrote two, ca.1827 I think, first published (I believe) 1984 by Musica Rara (no.2), 1992 by Compmusic (no.1 in F), 2004 by A-R Editions the both of them together with a nice preface :).
If you could find a pianist, some of the nonets or octets suggested could easily be arranged for a sextet of piano and winds.