In his introduction to the piece, Harrison Birtwistle writes "It seems that a cheerful and lively argument is going on among the instruments in this wind quintet. The horn and the bassoon contend while the other three players offer commentary, the flute, oboe and clarinet twittering together constantly together. After about seven minutes, there is a pause (with short interruptions) – but soon the music moves on again, accelerating until it reaches the close, exhausted and slow, where it can only repeat the same motifs. Once again, this is instrumental musical theatre." As a young man Birtwistle was a clarinettist, and recalls how wind quintets were treated as a family, like a string quartet, when in fact they could not be more different. As Birtwistle says of this piece "it could be 5 differences instead of 5 distances." To this end, the opening instruction on the score is: "the players must sit as far apart as practically possible".
Performance duration (approx): 14'
