Quintette à ventComposed in 1959, the wind quintet represents the second phase in the process started in Kurtág's compositional activity by the String Quartet. A lengthy stay in Paris (studies with Milhaud and Marianne Stein), acquaintance with 20th century music other than Bartók's induced Kurtág to radically reevaluate his oeuvre. The new artistic orientation that resulted from that reevaluation demanded and made possible the development of a more precise, unequivocal compositional technique. The Wind Quintet is written for the traditional instruments of the genre, but the material given the instruments to play involves new means of expression and places the performers before very high technical demands. The Wind Quintet is in eight brief movements. It is not a series of bagatelles, however, but an uninterrupted arch. The microforms are highly articulated in themselves, the motifs, often consisting their gestural power, their emotional content.
