1. 1. Moderate, bluesy
2. 2. Calm but expressive – Twice as fast, tempestuous  – Tempo 1 – Distant
3. 3. Rhythmic and dancelike – Joyous and playful – A little faster

Wind Quintet was composed over the summer of 2010–11 for the New Sydney Wind Quintet who gave its first performance in Sydney in September 2011. The work is about 20 minutes duration and is made up of three movements in which some of the musical ideas reappear throughout the work. The scoring of the work is the standard wind quintet combination (flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon) without any doublings.

The work was the last of a series of pieces composed with the assistance of a Fellowship from the Australia Council for the Arts for 2009–10 for which I composed a series of chamber music works including two song cycles (To the evening star and Stille Sprache), a Quintet for Clarinet and Strings and a Sonata for Violin and Piano. Each of these works is quite large scale in form and expansive in structure. Whereas the Clarinet Quintet and Violin Sonata are both in four movements the Wind Quintet is in three.  But like the other works it is often quite playful in nature and contrasts a melodic impulse with rhythmic and virtuosic music.

© Andrew Schultz, 2011.