The Oslo Wind Ensemble is an excellent outfit, playing all the works on this generous CD with skill and sympathy....An irresistible bargain.

This thoroughly entertaining CD combines three very different and unfamiliar works with what's probably the finest wind quintet ever penned. The major item here is the Nielsen: a glorious work which achieves the rare combination of seriousness of expression as well as being utterly relaxed in tone. The Oslo ensemble is a little slower than usual, but its measured tempos are most convincing; indeed, in the finale they highlight musical connections with Nielsen's Fifth and Sixth Symphonies in ways rarely heard. The Swede John Axel Fernström was undeniably a minor composer. If his music doesn't possess many visionary qualities it's certainly well crafted and his 1943 Quintet is an engaging concert opener. Johan Kvandal from Norway is a weightier proposition and better-known outside of his native country than is Fernström. Kvandal's Quintet, Op 34 (1971), was written for the Oslo ensemble and is serious and high-minded in tone, contrasting effectively with both the Fernström and Kvandal's own Sacred Folktunes of 1963. In the Quintet's fast second movement Kvandal adopts a rather Shostakovichian manner, even alluding to the Soviet master's 12th Symphony, though to what purpose is unexplained.
The idiomatic playing is reproduced in a slightly flat recording, although the Naxos sound has great immediacy.