Sextet in B-flat Major, Op. 6

The wind quintet is made up of a heterogeneous combination of instruments: flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and French horn. Although it used to be referred to as a woodwind quintet, the horn is, of course, not a woodwind at all, but an interloper from the brass family, introduced because it blends well with the others. Adding a piano to the wind quintet might be expected to introduce another foreign element and multiply the mixed effect of the ensemble, but in a skillfully written sextet, the piano effectively binds the mixed wind ensemble together.

France was long the home of the wind quintet and the sextet for piano and winds. The earliest lasting quintets were the two dozen written in France by a Czech emigré, Antoine Reicha, a childhood friend of Beethoven, professor at the Conservatoire in Paris, and teacher of Liszt, Berlioz, Gounod, and Franck. The cosmopolitan Ludwig Thuille, whose ancestry was partly French, was born in the West Austrian Tyrol, the Alpine region that, since the end of the First World War, has been part of Italy. As a teenage music student in Munich, Thuille made the acquaintance of Richard Strauss, who was three years his junior, and a lifelong friendship developed between the two gifted youths. The conservative classicism to which they were then devoted created the first strong bond between them, and in the late 1880s, Alexander Ritter converted both to the Liszt Wagner school of modernism. Strauss dedicated his first major works in the new style, the symphonic poems Don Juan and Macbeth, to Thuille and Ritter. By the time of his death, Thuille was one of Munich's most influential musicians and teachers, and his Harmonielehre, written with Rudolf Louis, remained a standard textbook for years. The composer Ernest Bloch was one of his most successful students.

Thuille's compositions were less radical than those of his contemporaries, but he, unlike many of them, explored the world of chamber music. His Sextet, Op. 6, published in 1889 and premiered in Wiesbaden in the same year, shares traits of his early formal classicism and his developing expressive romanticism. It was composed in a period of intense creativity centered around his marriage in 1887, and the score was dedicated to his bride. he warm lyricism of the music, bridging old and new styles of formal classicism and expressive romanticism, the clarity of its structure, and the idiomatic writing for the wind instruments contributed to its immediate success with both musicians and audiences.

The first movement Allegro moderato has a Brahmsian influence and opens with a horn theme with a subtle piano accompaniment. Before the conclusion of this movement, which has symphonic dimensions, all of the instruments have solo moments. A deeply felt Larghetto follows. This movement, too, is set in musical language akin to that of the late Brahms and early Strauss and is eloquently and poetically written. This slow movement has a rich, central trio section. The gracious third movement is named Gavotte, marked Andante, quasi allegro, although it varies in important detail from the early dance of that name. It is an ornate movement, introduced by four sonorous piano chords. The Sextet closes with a brilliant and jovial, rhythmic Finale, marked Vivace, which includes a theme that resembles a hunting call.