Mozart, Minuet

John Jay Hilfiger has given us a lovely woodwind quintet transcription of the Minuet from Mozart's Eb Serenade, K. 375 for winds [Ed. note: A different edition - Friedrich Gabler's quintet arrangement of the whole Serenade - was reviewed in the May 2008 issue of the Horn Call.] This serenade, a product of Mozart's vienna period, was composed in 1781. It was originally scored fo a sextet of clarinets, horns, and bassoons. The following year the work was revised with the addition of two oboes, with much of the original clarinet material assigned to the oboes. The first published edition reflects this revised scoring. With Hilfiger's arrangement into wind quintet form, this delightful minuet movement from the Serenade is made accessible to more modern wind chamber music ensemble. The music lies comfortably in the range of every instrument in a wind quintet and would be ideally suited for a beginning group of wind players, affording them the opportunity to learn the melodies od some of the great wind repertoire in a slightly different format than the original sextet or later Mozart revision. LvD