Catherine
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« on: 10:00:30, 09-01-2008 » |
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Where/ how to start a composition for flute, oboe, horn, bassoon and clarinet, and thoughts on wind quintets in general.
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martle
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« Reply #1 on: 10:20:19, 09-01-2008 » |
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Hi Catherine
It's quite a tough one in some ways. There's a school of thought amongst some composers I know which holds that the flute is the problem, blending less well overall than the other instruments, and sitting on top of the texture for much of the time as well. I don't think that's necessarily true, and why go for harmonious 'blending' at all, necessarily? The wonderful Ligeti pieces for this ensemble (the 6 Bagatelles and the Ten Pieces) are so jam packed with ideas and novel approaches to the combo, you could do worse than listen to those - the ten pieces alternate 'tutti' movements with blinding mini-concerti for each instrument in turn.
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Green. Always green.
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C Dish
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« Reply #2 on: 14:57:07, 09-01-2008 » |
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Can you get your hands on the instruments? So much has been done with them already that it would be good to try to approach them as if they'd just been invented. It can be very liberating.. and, um.... frustrating -- depends what type of person you are.
In particular, I feel the way that technique, orchestration, and "new sounds" books describe these instruments have so little to do with what it feels like to play them (not a slight against such books, of course, I mean, how can they?). But reading the books does give one the impression that one is learning something essential about possibilities. It's my personal opinion that you have to try out the sounds yourself, though, or borrow an instrumentalist (which is even better if they have all the time in the world, as you do).
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inert fig here
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #3 on: 15:14:20, 09-01-2008 » |
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It's a problematic setup. No, the flute doesn't really fit in. But neither does the horn, so that's 40% of the group that's already a bit tricky to deal with. The instruments are also stuck in their conventional ranges more than strings are - in a string quartet for example the cello can play without any real strain up to two octaves higher than the violin's lowest note and be accompanied by the violins in a comfortable register. Putting the flute and oboe under the bassoon (in a conventional texture at least) is just wrong in so many ways. If you use alternative instruments like bass flute or contrabassoon they're even less flexible and can weigh heaps. And the dynamic flexibility is really not so hot. And there's no way a wind quintet can blend like a string quartet or even like a saxophone quartet. Calefax have a nice idea with the reed quintet thing (oboe, clarinet, bass clarinet, sax, bassoon) but there's not what you'd call a lot of decent original repertoire, at least not yet. Out on a limb I go: my favourite wind quintets are probably the ones that don't set themselves too ambitious a task. I probably prefer the Ligeti 6 Bagatelles to the 10 Pieces. I'd rather listen to a properly bubbly performance of some of the Reicha quintets or to the Françaix first quintet than to the Nielsen. I've never regretted getting the complete box of these:  10 CDs but damn cheap from www.jpc.de. Or if you can find the EMI release 'Les Rarissimes du Quintette à vent de l'ONF' don't miss it. They could blend.  I'm sure someone will be along with some more respectable recommendations before long...  |
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Catherine
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Posts: 32
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« Reply #4 on: 15:33:03, 09-01-2008 » |
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It's a problematic setup It's quite a tough one in some ways Oh dear. Perhaps I should try a string quartet. I thought a wind quintet would be a simpler option for my first original composition as I play in one ( so a live performance wouldn't be difficult to arrange) and know the instruments better, plus the criteria states the piece cannot exceed 3 mins. and must be for 4 - 10 instruments. Thanks for your suggestions and favourite quintets, I'll be sure to look out for those CDs. |
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autoharp
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« Reply #5 on: 16:04:30, 09-01-2008 » |
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Catherine, if you like the sound of a wind quintet, then write for it! Trouble is there are quite a few of us (I suspect) including the wind players who don't. I have to say I find it a fairly unpalatable resonance myself - Hindemith's Kleine Kammermusik op 24 no 2 being an honourable exception. It is to do with the mix of instruments - interesting that Janacek's Mladi seems to solve a lot of problems by adding a bass clarinet to the quintet - and also substituting a piccolo in one movement I think.
I'd second Ollie's nomination of Reicha - the one pre-20th century composer who undoubtedly knew how to do it.
Look for some clips on the internet. I did this for my students a few years back + came up with the odd good sounds by a couple of composers I'd never heard of. It can be quite interesting working out how the good sounds were achieved.
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #6 on: 16:18:33, 09-01-2008 » |
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Catherine, I now feel rather guilty that I might have put you off.  By all means do it. Especially if the duration limit is 3 minutes - I'm sure even I could come up with 3 minutes of decent-sounding stuff for wind quintet and a lot of my moans have to do with variety in the sound palette which for a short piece won't be an issue. You now know what all the whinges against the combination are, so you'd be in a good position to work around them. Sorry, do please ignore my moaning above and just write something. |
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Catherine
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Posts: 32
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« Reply #7 on: 16:24:27, 09-01-2008 » |
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Ollie, don't worry about putting me off. I'm glad for the advice  I'll have a go at the composition and see what happens. |
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martle
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« Reply #8 on: 19:11:12, 09-01-2008 » |
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I think I was maybe a bit too negative too! I've written a 15-minute wind quintet, and although I found it tough to do (for all the reasons above and then some) I'm actually quite proud of it. If you play in a quintet already, Catherine, you're sort of halfway there already, because you know how one 'operates' from the inside. Play to the strengths of your colleagues!
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Green. Always green.
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time_is_now
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« Reply #9 on: 19:22:35, 09-01-2008 » |
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I think I was maybe a bit too negative too! I've written a 15-minute wind quintet, and although I found it tough to do (for all the reasons above and then some) I'm actually quite proud of it. Not only that, but it's at least one person's favourite martle piece! (I don't mean mine, just to clarify.) |
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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Notoriously Bombastic
Posts: 181
Never smile at the brass
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« Reply #10 on: 22:30:01, 09-01-2008 » |
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Where/ how to start a composition for flute, oboe, horn, bassoon and clarinet, and thoughts on wind quintets in general.
It's very difficult to to offer pointers to composition, are you perhaps after advice on orchestration? As others have remarked, there are all sorts of challenges... For me, the biggest is the natural tessituras of the instruments. There are three instruments that naturally sit in the soprano compass, and the horn and bassoon gravitate to alto and tenor roles respectively. Given this, it's easy to make the music sound either 'tweety' or use uncomfortable registers. Second the idea of trying a string quartet since this progresses from thinking in four part harmony (although the possiblities for double stopping take things considerably further). Interested in Ollie's suggestions for alternate instruments. I wouldn't go quite that far, but cor and bass clarinet may be useful doublings. Other composers' methods for expanding a wind quintet to a sextet include Janacek (add bass clarinet) and Poulenc (add piano), interestingly both adding an instrument with a bass register. And on a biased note, you could always try writing for brass quintet. The benefits are the ease of blending and the relatively limited (but overlapping) ranges. Of course, the negatives are... NB |
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richard barrett
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« Reply #11 on: 23:43:31, 09-01-2008 » |
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I don't think I can name many wind quintet pieces that I really like, though I'm looking forward to hearing the Reicha pieces some time - there's Stockhausen's Adieu and Zeitmasse, though the latter doesn't use the standard instrumentation, Heinz Holliger's h, I think, though I haven't heard it for ages, Hans-Joachim Hespos' profile, Ligeti's Ten Pieces, in which he tackles the "problem" of the instruments not belonging together by writing a set of little concertos, which is the kind of approach I might well take myself if I were to write one, James Dillon's Le rivage, haven't heard that for years too and maybe I wouldn't be so keen now.
Apart from that: as intimated above, if I found myself having to think about writing a wind quintet, the first "thought experiments" I'd conduct on myself would be in the direction of looking at the "disadvantages" of the medium and imagine a musical situation where those same features would be advantages.
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ahinton
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« Reply #12 on: 15:38:23, 10-01-2008 » |
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I think that Ollie's largely right about the flute and horn aspect of the ensemble; it's not an entire put-off or obstacle by any means, but it remains an issue to be considered, I think. Whilst I realise that your brief is to write a piece for conventional wind quintet line-up, the issue of comparative homogenity might be address by considering attempts to write pieces for, say, sax quintet (as suggested - soprano, two altos, tenor and baritone might work as a possible line-up), a quintet of clarinets (say 1 in E flat, 2 in B flat, 1 bass and one contrabass is one possibility, save for the sheer rarity of the last-named) or a double reed quintet for, say, 2 oboes, cor anglé, bassoon and contrabassoon. I've only ever written one wind quintet, years ago; it was scored for alto flute doubling piccolo, cor anglé, soprano sax, bass clarinet and contrabassoon and perhaps this unconventional combination turned out to be one good reson why the piece ended up in the garbage bin...
Never mind that, though; good luck!
Best,
Alistair
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Ron Dough
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« Reply #13 on: 16:38:05, 10-01-2008 » |
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The piece for wind quintet that most R3 late night listeners will be most aware of is the excerpt from Milhaud's La Chemineé du Roi René which introduces TTN, and does allow the oboe to sit at the top for some of the time, particularly in the extended version which used to harbinger weekend editions: a fine example of what can be achieved in just a few minutes. I'm a great fan of Barber's Summer Music, too.
The only time I've written for a similar ensemble, there was no bassoon available, although there was a vibraphone, which in some ways created even more problems: at least with a standard wind quintet there are various combinations of two, three and even four instruments which can stand alone or act as a foil for the fifth, allowing for contrasts of colour and texture: heterogeneity as well as homogeneity. Just go for it! As a kicking-off point, since you presumably know all the players well, perhaps you might explore their individual personalities through their instrumental lines...
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