I hope you’ve enjoyed the examples in this article focusing on woodwinds. In his magnificent and tuneful ballets, Tchaikovsky wrote some idiomatic parts for winds. Prokofiev scored it for a relatively small orchestra of just four woodwinds, five brass, an array of percussion and strings. Tchaikovsky told his fellow musicians he was working on a "fantastic" ballet called The Nutcracker: "It's awfully fun to write a march for tin soldiers, a waltz of the flowers, etc. Before moving on, it is informative to listen to the line played two octaves apart by the piccolo and the flute in measures 94 and 95. One interesting detail is how Tchaikovsky creates this lightness in the winds as it contrasts to the previous passage in the strings. The woodwinds are the most varied section of the orchestra. When the strings enter just before measure 92, they essentially replay the passage previously performed by the double reeds. And the repeat of the phrase has the oboes and clarinets together, joined by the four horns. Among his many gifts, he had the ability to create great and memorable tunes and to introduce them by often unusual groupings in the orchestra. References Yet, in the wind passage, the composer chooses only to have one horn take the previous role of the basses while the second flute and second clarinet take that of the four horns. Percy Grainger arranged the waltz for piano solo as Paraphrase on Tchaikovsky’s Flower Waltz. Ravel chose only to orchestrate four of them. After a couple of measures of piano and strings, a similar pattern returns in the woodwinds, this time with the addition of the flute but with no horns. When the oboe reenters the clarinet drops out and all of the winds are now double reeds. In the first part, the double basses sustain the pedal A, complemented in octaves by the bassoons and, for a while, the horns. French for 'Waltz of the Flowers', probably from Tsaikovsky's 'Nutcracker'. Some pieces have been cut to allow a 3-5 minute general duration and to remove especially difficult passages of music. Yet, it’s the simplicity and the style that infuse the snippet so effectively into the work. It has been arranged for various instruments and for various combinations of instruments. The parts scores for Tchaikovsky contain both pieces in one file. Hear how Ravel begins with a G major triad in close harmony: the fifth in the oboe, the third in the clarinet and the root in the bassoons. Ultimately as the passage ends — again, only with winds — the chords are played by one flute, one oboe, two clarinets, a bassoon and a horn. The new tech generally consisted of a manufacturer modifying an existing instrument. His place as a revered French composer was not lost on later composers, including Ravel. For the first of these phrases (measures 156 through 158), the composer opens with the clarinet hitting the second beat of the measure alone with a one line B and immediately leaping up a fourth to E on the third beat. The passage is then repeated by the woodwinds and, as one would expect, the color changes dramatically. The score calls for a flute, clarinets and bassoons. Let’s look at one of my favorite concertos of the more than two dozen piano concertos written by Mozart, Number 23 in A major. More from Ten Pieces KS2: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - The Nutcracker – Waltz of the Flowers; Russian Dance However, the suite Le tombeau de Couperin is at least as much an honor to those who died in World War I and to the Baroque suite as it is to the Couperin. It adds a simple rhythm layer to each piece. In fact, they constitute the ensemble known as a Woodwind Quintet, but here with the addition of a second clarinet. Nevertheless, it’s these harmonies that make measures 3 and 4 so warm.