OSMOSIS
OSMOSIS consists of five musicians of international standing who share a love of early wind instruments and their repertoire. The quintet’s focus is the early romantic period, a time of experimentation and rapid change in wind instrument construction: the soundscape of the wind section was changing from one decade to the next, expanding in range and dynamic flexibility, increasingly rich in colours and contrasts of timbre.
Alongside the repertoire for wind quintet alone, OSMOSIS performs chamber repertoire for winds and strings of the early romantic period. This precious repertoire has been little explored on historical instruments: to hear it for the first time on these instruments is to encounter a world of colours that have since vanished. With the march of the symphony as the predominant instrumental genre, all instruments succumbed to its demands for volume, speed and equality of timbre: the wooden flute of Beethoven’s and Schubert’s time was transformed into a shimmering pipe of silver or gold, the reed instruments acquired a more slender build and many more keys, and the horn was fitted with valves. The soundscape that Reicha, Danzi, Beethoven, Onslow and Spohr exploited is like a magnificent sunset, indescribably rich, ever-changing, breathtaking, and transient. Emily Dickinson once called the sunset an “amber revelation”: OSMOSIS brings you an amber revelation in sound.
OSMOSIS’ debut recording on the Ramée label with special guest string players from the Nepomuk Fortepiano Quintet with early romantic repertoire for winds and strings by Onslow and Spohr was released in 2010.
In that same year OSMOSIS was invited by The Netherlands' Music Centre and the Utrecht Early Music Festival to perform as part of the “Made in Holland: Early Music Showcase”. The quintet made a national tour in collaboration with the Dutch Early Music Association and presented the new CD during two nonet concerts.
Upcoming highlights include a performance in De Doelen in Rotterdam with guest fortepianist Stanley Hoogland and a tour to Australia in May 2012.