Two twentieth century works, Ernest Bloch’s first piano quintet and Samuel Barber’s Summer Music for wind quintet.
Bloch’s first piano quintet was written in the USA in 1923. It’s a hard hitting work but with, ultimately, a peaceful resolution to its barbaric dances and turmoil. Also of interest is the decorative use the composer makes of quarter-tones.
Agitato
Andante mistico
Allegro energico
By contrast, Barber’s 1955 Summer Music is for the most part a relaxed neo-Romantic work (as is most of Barber’s output). It’s a rhapsody in palindromic form. And, while it has no specific narrative element, as the ‘Slow and indolent’ tempo marking at the head of the score suggests, it conjures the atmosphere of Summer in its different moods. It also poses several severe technical challenges for the performers.
And here, as requested, is a downloadable version of the cycle of keys diagram:
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Iaago
The Art of Listening 