About this Piece

Hindemith’s affection for the “blowing” instruments was not just a matter of lip service—his large catalog is liberally dotted with works featuring the winds. Notable among these are the sonatas with piano for, in chronological order of composition, flute, oboe, bassoon, clarinet, horn, trumpet, English horn, trombone, and tuba. Before embarking on the sonatas, he gathered five winds—flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horn—for an adventurous quintet romp. 

The quintet, with the title “Small Chamber Music,” appeared in 1922; his first Kammermusik, Op. 24, No. 1, written the same year, was for a small orchestra that included accordion and a siren. This first Kammermusik found the composer examining the Russian-Parisian Stravinsky under his microscope (the first movement is neo-Petrushka) and flirting with jazz (one movement is titled “Shimmy,” another “Ragtime”) as well as with polytonality. One might conclude that he seemed determined to jolt his audience. 

Having got this bizarre behavior out of his system, Hindemith relaxed his experimental zeal considerably for the wind quintet but still kept Stravinsky clearly in view. The dry, caustic timbre of the winds is perfectly matched to the lean, chic, and impersonal materials that speak Stravinsky’s neoclassical tongue, as translated into what was to become Hindemith’s characteristic language. This is music that, while invoking the outdoor wind divertimentos of the 18th century, sneers at the late 19th century’s sonorous and emotional indulgences. 

The opening of the first movement sets the pungent, cerebral tone that pervades the work. The main theme played by the clarinet consists of three motifs subjected to expansion, development, and repetition, the latter by way of the kinds of obsessive ostinato figures on which Stravinsky held a lifetime patent. A contrasting theme in oboe suggests a relaxation of tension, although the propulsive three-note rhythm of the opening supplies energetic locomotion to its incipient lyricism. After a repeat of the main theme (in oboe, with a buffoonish figure in clarinet), the bassoon recalls the lyric tune, and then the movement ends in a puff of whimsical, dissonant smoke. 

The second movement dances a satiric waltz, whereas the third movement has a dirge-like, archaic character. The brief interlude that follows, really just a bridge to the finale, exploits the repeated notes that Hindemith seized upon with such relish in the preceding movements. Within its mere 23 measures, each of the instruments has a mini-cadenza, with the repeated note figures forming the connective tissue. The whirlwind last movement is coolly sophisticated, bracingly syncopated, and bristling with the by-now-familiar ostinatos and repeated notes. —Orrin Howard