The Danzi Quintet was a Dutch wind quintet

Wind quintet

A wind quintet, also sometimes known as a woodwind quintet, is a group of five wind players . The term also applies to a composition for such a group....

, one of the most highly regarded quintets active in the 1960s and 1970s

The quintet took its name from the 18th/19th-century composer Franz Danzi

Franz Danzi

Franz Ignaz Danzi was a German cellist, composer and conductor, the son of the noted Italian cellist Innocenz Danzi. Born in Schwetzingen, Franz Danzi worked in Mannheim, Munich, Stuttgart and Karlsruhe, where he died....

 (a notable early composer of wind quintets), and was founded in 1956 or 1957 by the flutist

Flute

The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

 Frans Vester. It was composed of members of the Concertgebouw and Dutch Opera

De Nederlandse Opera

De Nederlandse Opera , in Amsterdam, is a Dutch opera company based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Its present home base is the Het Muziektheater, a modern building designed by Cees Dam which opened in 1986....

 Orchestras, and was initially formed in order to perform the Dutch premiere of Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...

's Wind Quintet, op. 26, which they did—after 107 rehearsals over the course of a year—at the 1958 Holland Festival (Keller 1958, 450; Thomson 1985, 289). The other founding members of the quintet were Leo Driehuys (oboe

Oboe

The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...

), Pem Godri (clarinet

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

), Brian Pollard (bassoon

Bassoon

The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...

), and Adriaan van Woudenberg (horn

Horn (instrument)

The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....

) (Schat and Escher 1992, 51). Vester played in the quintet for the entire period of its existence and was also its artistic director. Koen van Slogteren soon took over the position of oboist, and shortly afterward Piet Honingh became the clarinetist. Slogteren remained until 1971 (Schat and Escher 1992, 75). He was succeeded by Maarten Karres, then in 1973 by Han de Vries

Han de Vries

Han Samuel de Vries , is a Dutch oboist and is considered the doyen of the Dutch school of oboe playing.De Vries studied oboe with Jaap Stotijn at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague and with his son Haakon Stotijn at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam. He won many prizes in his youth,...

 (Leur 2001), and later by Jan Spronk.

The Danzi Quintet acquired international fame, especially for their performances of contemporary music

Contemporary classical music

Contemporary classical music can be understood as belonging to the period that started in the mid-1970s with the retreat of modernism. However, the term may also be employed in a broader sense to refer to all post-1945 modern musical forms.-Categorization:...

 (Anon. 1961; Schat and Escher 1992, 51; Smilde 1988; Thomson 1985, 289).

Many composers wrote works for the Danzi Quintet, amongst others Rob du Bois

Rob du Bois

Rob du Bois is a Dutch composer, pianist, and jurist.-Background and education:Rob du Bois was born in Amsterdam. His French ancestry can be seen from his name, and he maintains a sympathy for the French mentality and language...

 (Chants en contrepoints, 1962 and Réflexions sur le jour où Pérotin le Grand ressuscitera, 1969), Peter Schat

Peter Schat

Peter Schat was a Dutch composer.Schat studied composition with Kees van Baaren at the conservatories in Utrecht and The Hague from 1952 until 1958, and then went on to study in London with Mátyás Seiber in 1959 and with Pierre Boulez in Basle in 1960–61...

 (Improvisations and Symphonies, opus 11, 1960), Ton de Leeuw

Ton De Leeuw

Antonius Wilhelmus Adrianus de Leeuw was a Dutch composer. He was known for his experiments with microtonality....

 (Antiphony, for wind quintet and four-channel tape, 1960), Misha Mengelberg

Misha Mengelberg

Misha Mengelberg is a Dutch jazz pianist and composer. He won the Gaudeamus International Composers Award in 1961.-Biography:...

 (Omtrent een componistenactie, 1966), and Jan van Vlijmen (Second Wind Quintet, 1972).

Sources

• Anon. 1959. "Wind Quintets: Common Antiseptic Quality". The Times (London) (Wednesday 25 March): 13.
• Anon. 1961. "Musical Chairs". The Times (London) (Thursday 26 October): 18.
• Keller, Hans. 1958. "Reports from Abroad: Holland Festival" The Musical Times 99, no. 1386 (August): 449–50.
• Leur, Truus de. 2001. "Vries, Han (Libbe [Samuel]) de". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie
  Stanley Sadie
  Stanley Sadie CBE was a leading British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , which was published as the first edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.Sadie was educated at St Paul's School,...
  
   and John Tyrrell
  John Tyrrell (professor of music)
  John Tyrrell was born in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia in 1942. He studied at the universities of Cape Town, Oxford and Brno. In 2000 he was appointed Research Professor at Cardiff University....
  
  . London: Macmillan Publishers.
• Schat, Peter, and Rudolf Escher. 1992. Peter Schat, Rudolph Escher: brieven, 1958–1961, edited by Erik Voermans. Bibliotheek Nederlandse muziek 3. Hilversum: Centrum Netherlandse Muziek; Zutphen: Walburg Pers. ISBN 9060117867
• Smilde, Rineke. 1988. "Het Danzi Kwintet: een invloedrijk ensemble: een inventarisatie van diverse aspecten die bij de muzikale groei van een ensemble een rol spelen: een en ander belicht aan de hand van partituren die de ontwikkeling van het Danzi Kwintet mede hebben bepaald". Doctoral dissertation in musicology, University of Amsterdam.
• Thomson, J[ohn] M[ansfield]. 1985. "[Review of] Concerning the Flute by Rien de Reede". Early Music 13, no. 2 (May): 289–91.
• Zomeren, Koos van. 2005. "Geváárlijke symfonieën" (interview with Piet Honingh). NRC Handelsblad (Wednesday 16 November).