Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:
Quintet in E-flat major, KV 452

Franz Ignaz Danzi:
Quintet in D minor, Op. 41

Ludwig van Beethoven:
Quintet in E-flat major, Op. 16

Unfortunately there is no real Norwegian language equivalent to the expression “unsung hero,” but one can immediately place Franz Danzi in that category. His upbringing in Mannheim in the 1770s and 80s provided him with the perfect backdrop to experience the most important musical currents of the time, where people puttered around with such things as synchronized bowings and soloistic wind parts in the orchestra – elements commonplace to us today, but considered quite groundbreaking then. The young Danzi also met Mozart, who showed a great interest in the pioneering work in Mannheim, and Danzi expressed boundless admiration for the old master throughout his entire life.

Danzi’s big dream was to further develop the German Singspiel genre, where Mozart, with the operas The Abduction from the Seraglio and The Magic Flute, had laid a golden foundation. Danzi’s wife, Margarethe Marchand, was an outstanding soprano and an enthusiastic promoter of her husband’s works, but when she died at the young age of 32, Danzi seemed to lose interest in the genre. However, he was an avid supporter and inspiration to his younger colleague, Carl Maria von Weber. Weber’s Singspiel Der Freischu?tz (The Marksman) took the genre to new heights, with the manifestation of nature as a singing creature. For this we must thank Danzi!

Quintets for winds and piano are a rare bird in music history, and the reason for that may very well be that Mozart’s and Beethoven’s own works set such high standards that few dared to follow in their footsteps. This idea is by no means an oddity. We can think of the clarinet quintets of Mozart and Brahms, which depict a perfectly symbiotic soundscape just waiting to be explored. But where these two towers loom over all others, later “structures” have been few and far between. From the Mannheim development, which gave the winds more space in the orchestra, came the desire for pure wind ensembles of various sizes, and also in combination with other instruments. Mozart’s quintet is a natural first stopping point for this development, and as is often the case with Mozart, his first attempt becomes a great success: an ensemble that basically isn’t particularly homogenous, in a perfect unit, where there is still plenty of room for each instrument to shine. The piano has a supporting role but often discreetly lies in the background against the vibrant escapades of the winds. The first movement has a lithe introduction where the lines wander, in the most outstanding Mozart-esque way, from instrument to instrument, intersecting and inspiring each other, but never overshadowing or disturbing one another. The Larghetto is an archetypal Mozart movement from this period, seemingly uncomplicated, but where long, increasingly intricate harmonic surfaces unfold before it all returns to the charming, operatic bits that bring us safely to shore. And to mark the soloistic element of this quintet, Mozart rounds off the finale’s lively rondo with a brief cadenza, where the instruments mimic each other before uniting together toward the final stretch.