143 - Woodwind Quintet No. 3 (1962)

Composed by Alec Wilder in 1958From notes by Samuel Baron:  "Quintet No. 3 is...energetic and angular in its outer movements but it has a characteristic Wilder tenderness in the second movement and characteristic Wilder whimsy in the Scherzo.  The original meaning of Scherzo is 'joke' and this particular Scherzo has a joke within a joke.  I refer to the section in the middle where the tempo suddenly doubles and assumes a rakish, strutting gait, not a little Chaplinesque.  Towards the end of the third movement and in the fourth movement again, there appears a thematic phenomenon not usually associated with the style of Alec Wilder - a twelve-tone row!  Dodecaphonic musicologists give careful attention!"