Nielsen: Wind Quintet, Op. 43 (FS 100)

Nielsen composed most of his wind chamber music towards the latter part of his career, when his interests moved from strings to wind instruments. The disc includes the most familiar and widely recorded specimen of Nielsen’s chamber writing, the 1922 Wind Quintet, coupled with lesser known works such as Serenata in Vano, Two Fantasies Op.2 and Canto Serioso. “Both major and minor works are wonderfully played… One can urge immediate acquisition of this disc,” wrote Fanfare. Although, now longer performing publicly, the Athena Ensemble had an excellent career and reputation, “The music is expertly performed with charm, sensitivity and imagination by the Athena Ensemble” said Classic CD (on the Elgar Wind Quintet recording, CHAN 241-33) and this disc is sure to remind listeners of their back catalogue with Chandos.

Chamber-music for woodwinds mainly took the form of Harmoniemusik in Europe up to the end of the eighteenth century. Often in serenade form, the "wind band" compositions served as court entertainment. The development of a middle-class musical culture created a demand for "sophisticated" chamber music for winds that could exist alongside the dominant string quartet.

The genre had its heyday in the late Classical and Romantic periods.

In 1955 five wind players from the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra formed The Norwegian Wind Quintet, an ensemble that has over the years since its inception earned a major international reputation. This 2-CD set presents a collection of some of the NWQ’s finest recordings for radio, as well as music by Brustad, Kvandal, Sparre Olsen and Bibalo from the group’s first solo recording in 1975. These performances are being made available on CD for the first time.

Carl Nielsen's Wind Quintet is a key work in the repertoire, and is considered to be one of Nielsen's most important chamber music works. Johan Fernström had a central position in Swedish music around the time of World War II, and completed his opus 59 in 1943. Pauline Hall had a varied background from the years between the two wars, including studies in Paris where she became inspired by the French impressionist movement. Sparre Olsen's Suite for tre treblåsere, op. 10, was composed during the war and published in 1946. Hagerup-Bull completed studies in Paris with Darius Milhaud and wrote his woodwind trio in 1953. Johan Kvandal's Wind Quintet was composed in 1971, a turbulent period in Kvandal's life. Bjarne Brustad's piece from 1970 is neoclassical in style, whilst the two quintets by Antonio Bibalo are very different in style and expression.