Wind Quintet Op. 159

Wind Quintet with Narrator. Written for the Oxford based wind quintet 'The Five Winds' for a Children's Christmas concert. First performed at the Holywell Music Rooms Oxford 1985. A sleepy bear (bassoon) a romantic lady (cor anglais) a mad cobbler (clarinet) and a fisherman's son (piccolo) are all visited by the 'Mountain Wind' (horn) of Stephen Pegg's imaginative story.

Walden for wind quintet was written in 1978 and commissioned by the Funen Wind Quintet. The title is taken from the American philosopher and poet Henry David Thoreau?s novel from 1854 about living in the woods which Thoreau did for two years.His stay there was an experiment an attempt to strip away all the artificial needs imposed by society and rediscover man?s lost unity with nature. In that particular sense his novel is a documentation of social inadequacy and a work of poetry (Utopia) as well.All thought Thoreau himself never completed any actual social analysis he was way ahead of his own time in his perception of the economy and cyclic character of Nature todayknown as ecology. His ideas are particularly relevant now that pollution caused by society has reached alarming proportions.Walden was written in a style of re-cycling and ?new simplicity?. A lot of superfluous material has been peeled away in order to give space to different qualities such as identity and clarity. Various layers are encountered in the quintet such as the organic (growth flowering Decay) concretism (mechanical patterns) and finally the descriptive (distant horn calls and other ghost-like music of the past enter our consciousness like a dream). Walden consist of four movements.In 1995 another version for reed quintet was written to the Calefax Reed Quintet.?

Pour Quintette de Vents-French composer and conductor Henri Tomasi (1901-1971) published Five Secular and Sacred Dances for Wind Quintet in 1963. As with his other wind compositions Five Secular and Sacred Dances was well-received by audiences. Tomasi was born in Marseille but his Father and Mother were originally from La Casinca in Corsica. Despite being pressured into musical studies by his parents Tomasi dreamed of becoming a sailor and during the summer he stayed with his Grandmother in Corsica where he learnt traditional Corsican songs. However in 1921 he began his studies at the Paris Conservatoire and wenton to become a high profile composer and conductor. Tomasi did not forget his Corsican routes often incorporating themes of the songs he had learnt during the summers with his Grandmother in to his compositions. Five Secular and Sacred Dances is a reduction arrangement of his work of the same name for Chamber Orchestra. Comprising five movements; 1) Rural Dance 2) Secular Dance 3) Sacred Dances 4) Bridal Dance and 5) Warrior Dances Five Secular and Sacred Dances is one of three Wind Quintets by the composer. This Tomasi piece is suitable to an advanced Wind Quintet providing an exciting alternative addition to the ensemble repertoire.

for Flute Oboe Clarinet in Bb Bassoon and Horn in F-Alan Bullard's Dances for Wind Quintet were commissioned by the Marlborough Wind Quintet and first performed by them in the Purcell Room in June 1983. It was subsequently taken up by the Vega Wind Quintet who broadcast it on BBC Radio 3 and since then it has received numerous performances worldwide.