First meeting of the second half
January 2026
In these days of jet travel, the internet and international transport, we can forget that in times past, people lived very local lives, often their village and the local market town was the limit of their universe. Many had never heard a symphony orchestra or went to the opera. Their music would have been travelling players in the local church (village and church halls were a rarity) and if they had access to ‘classical’ music at all, it might be a piano transcription of a symphony or other piece.
The middle classes might have an invitation to the ‘big house’ to hear a small ensemble of some kind. It is this world that Ed Tinline illustrated with his presentation featuring wind ensembles. As ever, there were pieces by composers long forgotten who might have been quite famous in their day.
Wind ensembles trace their roots to military bands in the seventeenth and earlier times and came to the fore in the French Revolution. One of the problems for composers was the lack of standardisation of the instruments which meant writing ensemble pieces difficult. Some pieces were composed to fit the players who were available not the other way round.
The twentieth century saw the form come of age so to speak and major composers start to write pieces specifically for these groups.
We started with a piece by a composer you are likely to have heard of, one WA Mozart and his 1781 Serenade, followed by someone who has almost been forgotten, Franz Tausch (1762 – 1817) and his Wind Quartet op 22. Pieces by Antoine Reicha and Franz Krommer followed. Reicha taught at the Conservatoire and pupils included Liszt and Berlioz but he fell into obscurity after his death.
We moved into later periods with music by Gabriel Pierné and Paul Taffanel who both lived into the twentieth century.
The second half had contributions from Carl Nielson and his Wind Quintet and Leoš Janáček. Someone less well known is John Fernström with his 1943 Wind Quintet. He is another of those who had a significant output of works but who has largely disappeared. Born in China, most of his life was spent in Sweden where he was an orchestral player and conductor.
After a Wind Quintet by Eugène Bozza (1905 – 1991) we listened to an unusual piece for 4 saxophones by Philip Glass. Finally, and cheating a bit (there’s a piano!), was the Quintet in B♭ by Rimsky-Korsakov.
An interesting programme with a variety of forgotten compositions interspersed with works by established composers.
Our next meeting features the work of the eccentric Frenchman Eric Satie on 9 February.
PC
Salisbury Recorded Music Society 