Score and five parts (Flute Oboe Clarinet Bassoon Horn).Moderate level of difficulty.Night on Bald Mountain depicts a witches’ sabbath on St. John’s Day the night between 23 and 24 June. Its sections present the infernal noise of ghostly voices the chattering and quarrelling of witches the appearance of ghosts the dance of witches and demons the appearance of Satan the adoration and Black Mass and finally the pealing bells of the village church announcing the break of day and thus the end of the witches’ sabbath.Whether intentionally or not Mussorgsky actually finished the work on the eve of St. John’s Day (23 June1867) after spending twelve days on its composition. Technically speaking Joachim Linckelmann’s exciting version for Wind Quintet is the arrangement of an arrangement as Mussorgsky’s symphonic poem is almost invariably heard in the familiar version by Rimsky-Korsakov.

Postcards was written in 1991 for the Vega Wind Quintet who first performed it at the Huddersfield Festival in the same year. It is a reworking of a set of eight Bagatelles written in 1965: each movement has been rewritten and enlarged to a greater or lesser extent. The title was chosen to emphasise the nature of the pieces which are in a sense brief postcards from different genres (fugato dance etc). John McCabe (1939-2015) was a British composer pianist and music administrator. He studied at the Royal Manchester College of Music and built a career as a virtuoso pianist. However he also wrote several hundred musical compositions ranging from large-scale orchestral works to chamber music and solo instrumental pieces - it is said the only classical genre he did not write for was opera.