A composition for five wind instruments. Although there are many exceptions the usual combination, which became established around 1800, is flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn. This grouping evolved from the imperial Harmoniemusik as used at the Vienna court of Joseph II from 1782 (two oboes, two clarinets, two horns and two bassoons). The new quintet combination with its solo voices took advantage of the technical improvements being made to wind instruments during this period, and allowed some of the principles of Haydn's writing for string quartet to be transferred to chamber music for wind instruments. Antonio Rosetti (c1750–1792), Nikolaus Schmidt and G.M. Cambini (1764–1825) were among the first to compose for the new combination, but the wind quintet became a firmly established musical genre only with Antoine Reicha's 24 quintets written from 1811 (six each in opp.88, 91, 99, 100) and Franz Danzi's nine quintets written in 1820–24 (three each in opp.56, 67, 68). For the rest of the 19th century, with the exception of Georges Onslow's three quintets op.81 (1852), there was less interest in the wind quintet. However, with Paul Hindemith (Kleine Kammermusik for five wind instruments op.24 no.2, 1922), Carl Nielsen (op.43, 1922) and Arnold Schoenberg (op.26, 1923–4), the tonal and contrapuntal possibilities of writing for wind were rediscovered. Other leading composers of the 20th century who wrote for wind quintet were Jacques Ibert, Florent Schmitt, Jean Françaix, Darius Milhaud, Eugène Bozza, Samuel Barber, Henk Badings, Malcolm Arnold, Karlheinz Stockhausen and György Ligeti. Since the 1950s the increase in wind playing in schools and by amateurs has led to the composition of pedagogic wind chamber music for all kinds of wind ensembles including quintets.
S. Baron and others: ‘The Woodwind Quintet: a Symposium’, Woodwind Magazine, vi (1954), 4
U. Sirker: Die Entwicklung des Bläserquintetts in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts (Regensburg, 1968)
M. Hosek: Das Bläserquintett (Grünwald, 1979)
W. Suppan: ‘Die Harmoniemusik’, Musica privata: Festschrift zum 65. Geburtstag von Walter Salmen ed. M. Fink, R. Gstrein and G. Mössner (Innsbruck, 1991) 151–66
A. Marold: Spiel in kleinen Gruppen (Tutzing, 1999)
WOLFGANG SUPPAN