Two Movements for wind quintet (1987)

Anyone who has got to know James MacMillan’s creative personality by way of such such sensational works as The Confession of Isabel Gowdie or the percussion concerto Veni, veni Emmanuel will surely look in vain for the same features in his Two Movements for Wind Quintet. While they are not lacking in sensation, that quality is to be found here not in violent extremes of expression inspired by religious or political passion but in the extraordinary virtuosity required in performance. Brilliantly inventive in rhythm and elaborately detailed in texture, they present such problems of ensemble that on the occasion of the first performance, at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow two years ago, the composer conducted it.

Although there is a clear distinction between the two movements, they are linked by the material first heard in the opening bars: flute and oboe anticipate the staccato articulation and jerky rhythms that are to characterise the main sections of the work, while the bassoon defies the prevailing metre in legato melodic lines that gradually fall in pitch and reduce the tempo, drawing the other instruments into the same situation. This introduction is repeated between the movements which, though similarly animated in their five-part activity, do not exclude individual expression – like the flute solo towards the end of the first and the bassoon solo shortly before the return of the introductory material in the closing bars.