Carl Nielsen’s Wind Quintet combines some of the most glorious music written for winds with an affectionate portrait of the musicians he was writing for. Observing their rehearsals, he put into musical form the suave character of the oboist, the nobility of the horn player and even the spat he witnessed between bassoonist and clarinettist. Solo and duo miniatures accompany the Nielsen in this programme, as well as Beethoven’s joyous wind octet, here in a version for five winds.

Barber’s evocative Summer Music begins with the instruction ‘slow and indolent’, its bluesy atmosphere summoning up the heat and moods of an American summer. Franco – American composer Betsy Jolas based her piece ‘O wall’ on the play within a play ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’ from  Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. Mendelssohn’s incidental music to ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ and Jean Françaix’s sparkling and virtuosic first Wind Quintet complete the programme.