Quintet


A quintet is a group containing five members. It is commonly associated with musical groups, such as a string quintet, or a group of five singers, but can be applied to any situation where five similar or related objects are considered a single unit.

Overview

In classical instrumental music, any additional instrument joined to the usual string quartet, gives the resulting ensemble its name, such as "piano quintet", "clarinet quintet", etc. A piece of music written for such a group is similarly named.
The standard wind quintet consists of one player each on flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horn, while the standard brass quintet has two trumpets, horn, trombone, and tuba. Other combinations, however, are sometimes found.
In jazz music, a quintet is group of five players, usually consisting of two of any of the following instruments, guitar, trumpet, saxophone, clarinet, flute or trombone in addition to traditional jazz trio – piano, double bass, drums.
In some modern bands there are quintets formed from the same family of instruments with various voices, as an all-brass ensemble, or all saxophones, in soprano, alto, baritone, and bass, and sometimes contrabass.

Notable quintets

Performing groups