Title: Early Development of the Woodwind Ensemble
Headings: 
The Early Development of the Wind Quintet
Content: Today, Reicha is  best known for his treatises in theory and his woodwind quintets. His most important  treatises Traité de haute composition displayed Reicha’s thoughts that counterpoint was almost synonymous with  harmony. “Reicha’s  actual predilection was for chamber music, but he also wrote a few operas, which explains some of the operatic passages in  his chamber music.” [ 9] Reicha wrote twenty-four woodwind quintets in four sets of six,  opus number 88, 91, 99, and 100. These works were composed between 1810 and 1820  and were widely performed during this period. 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: