Title: Early Development of the Woodwind Ensemble
Headings: 
The Early Development of the Wind Quintet
Content: Reicha said of his quintets
At the time there  was a dearth not only of good classic music but of any good music for wind instruments, simply because the composers knew  little of their technique. The effects which a combination of these instruments  could produce had not been explored…instruments have been perfected by the addition of keys, but there was no worth  while music to show their possibilities. Such was the state of affairs when I  conceived the idea of writing a quintet for a combination of the five principal wind instruments (flute, oboe, clarinet, horn,  and bassoon). [ 10]
Reicha’s treatment  of the instruments separated his works from those of earlier composers. Each  voice was important: the bassoon was no longer an accompanying instrument. He  used the ranges of each instrument more fully and moved away from strictly diatonic and arpeggiated passages. The combinations of instruments within the quintet were explored in these quintets so that different timbres  were created. “ His treatment of the instruments was not the only  different quality in his quintets. Rather than using all of the voices all of  the time in a homophonic style, he exposes the various themes in different voices, with a varied combination of accompanying  instruments.