Just a few weeks ago I finished my first woodwind quintet. While I’ve always been partial to winds, I’ve never ventured into this form before. It was great fun to write and I hope it comes out that way to the listener.
It’s essentially a celebration of counterpoint. One of my earliest musical memories is one of voices moving with and against one another. It was Bach, of course. My music has never sounded remotely like Bach, but the influence has always been there at an increasingly deep level. The three scenes are as follows:
1 - Rounds. This is the most obviously contrapuntal movement, joyfully throwing out canons of all sorts. There are inversions, retrogrades
2 - Perpetuum Mobile - Does what it says on the tin, with a single quick line moving among instruments with just a few bits of homophony here and there
3 - Chorale - a more contemplative movement that focuses precisely on voicing of chords. It’s externally homophonic, but is based internally on the counterpoint that’s the core of the entire piece.