The penultimate concert of the year saw the focus move from pianos, brass and string instruments to the spirited oeuvre of the wind quintet with its many different colours, moods and characters. A more playful cousin to the serious and sincere string quartet, the repertoire that has evolved along with the quintet is often lighter, brighter and quirkier than others, reflecting the five very different instruments that jostle together in this engaging ensemble. And it was wonderful to welcome such a fantastic exponent of this repertoire to Inverurie on an early spring night, Ensemble Renard, fresh from navigating the choppy waters of island travel and safely ensconced in the warm acoustic of the Acorn Centre. They brought an exciting and varied programme that highlighted many of the different aspects of the wind quintet repertoire from characterful contemporary pieces to bespoke arrangements to romantic standards, all performed with poise, verve and humour.
The concert began with a collector’s item, an arrangement of Mozart’s Andante für eine Walze in eine kleine Orgel, one of the composer’s final pieces written for the unusual medium of the mechanical organ. This piece has long since freed the bonds of its peculiar genus to be arranged for a panoply of different instruments and ensembles and it certainly didn’t sound out of place for the wind quintet. The effervescent music galloped along in a typical Mozartian fashion, moving through the different combinations of the ensemble in a lively manner introducing the sonorities of the quintet to the audience in a beguiling and memorable way. This was followed by an extant piece for the quintet and one of the cornerstones of the repertoire, Samuel Barber’s sultry Summer Music from 1956. This piece, with its clever palindromic form introduces many more individual colours from the ensemble, from bluesy clarinet solos to Stravinskian bassoon flourishes and melancholy oboe interjections. The piece seems to tread a difficult path between earnestness and levity, but the demands it requires from the players are rewarded in a powerful work. The first half of the concert finished with two further arrangements: five of Mendelssohn’s Lieder ohne Worte (arranged by the ensemble’s own horn player, George Strivens) and baroque composer Isabella Leonarda’s Sonata Nona (arranged by Geoffrey King). Both of these pieces were delivered with precision and concentration, with the romantic pianism of some of Mendelssohn’s most beloved pieces transferring seamlessly to the often-disparate voices of the quintet.
The second half contrasted two contemporary works with one of the key pieces from the development of the wind quintet repertoire, and it made for a rewarding musical narrative. Martin Butler’s Down-Hollow Winds is a fleeting but effective piece, often promising to coalesce into a heartfelt melody or a wild dance but somehow negating that impulse to leave something familiar yet distant. It was performed with absolute dedication and understanding from the quintet. This was followed by two short folksong ‘free adaptations’ by former Master of the King’s Musick, Judith Weir, her Mountain Airs from 1988.
These ephemeral musings required only the upper woodwind trio of the group, and the change of emphasis and timbre added an exciting variety to the programme. In many ways, these modern pieces were the entrée to the main dish on the menu, Paul Taffanel’s Wind Quintet from 1876, one of only a handful of substantial nineteenth-century works for the ensemble. This three-movement piece, full of virtuosic writing and romantic panache was an excellent finale to the concert, not only demonstrating the intense colours of the instruments, but the technical abilities of Ensemble Renard as well. Rapturous applause ensued, as did a short but beautiful arrangement of Robert Burns’s Now Westlin’ Winds (again arranged by Strivens) which was gratefully received by the Inverurie audience.
PAC (23/03/25)
