quintet ideas

Birthed in Italy, written in Hempstead

I landed at JFK last Monday, after spending a few amazing days in London with fierce lovers and friends. I’ve been breathing in the past month all week.

Earlier today, a piece came out in Document Journal about the MQB artists in residency. I felt such gratitude for our time being captured this way by Jordan Anderson, creative director, writer, editor, and founder of MQBMBQ. It made me feel alive to re-experience the bonds we created in that space.

After unpacking clothes, wine, and a bottle of extra virgin olive oil on Long Island, I started hearing this idea. I could describe it as lonesome, hopeful, poised, dignified, yet playful, expansive, and porous.

I decided to score it for a woodwind quintet — flute, oboe, 2 clarinets, and bassoon.¹

You can view the score sketches in this post.

I wanted to share a sample of what I’ve been hearing this week so I pulled 7 bars from the sketch and wrote some music around it for context. It will likely appear different in the published draft, but here is a recording of the sound. 🎧

1. Woodwinds are the second most colorful instrument family in the orchestra (the first being percussion). They aren’t as dramatic as the strings or as epic as the brass, and aren’t as homogenous as either of them. Woodwinds are the most particular melodic family. The oboes and bassoons don’t vibrate in sync with the clarinets or flutes, compared to that of a viola and double bass, and instead the woodwinds create their own fantastic complicated sympathetic vibrations. An oboe playing in its low register and a clarinet playing in its high has a very different sound than a low flute and a high bassoon. The woodiness of the bassoon is tempered the higher you go, and it is rounded out when joined by the flute playing in its low register; there, a flute can melt into the size and depth of the sounding bassoon.