Quintet for Piano and Winds (Mozart)

Sarah Adams notes that "The four dissimilar wind timbres pitted against the piano in this extraordinary work must have posed Mozart with a compositional challenge.

He contended with the instrumental balance by constructing themes easily divisible into small motifs and by changing textural groupings every few bars for a kaleidoscopic array of tone colours.

After the slow section cadences on a B♭ dominant chord with a fermata (where the pianist will often improvise an Eingang), the movement's main theme appears featuring solo piano and is taken up by the winds a few bars later.

The third movement, marked Allegretto, is a five-part rondo (in A-B-A-C-A form), with the primary theme played first by piano solo and then by the winds shortly thereafter.

In 1995, French composer Jean Françaix (1912-1997) arranged the quintet to a Nonetto for nine instruments (oboe, clarinet in B♭, horn in E♭, bassoon, 2 violins, viola, cello and double bass), reworking the piano part for the strings.