As with all the music I have written since 1960, I composed this piece in Marino, my home in the Castelli Romani. I began the Quintet in spring 1990, and wrote the last note on 6th April 1991. Together with the “Chamber Music 1958”, the “String Quartet No 5” and the “Viola Sonata”, I think this represents the most complete chamber music I have written. The music is based on my experience of (19th century) Classical techniques whereby everything is subject to continuous movement, change and variation, which in the dialectical sense is inherent in sonata form. One could, I imagine, argue that this music is in the Beethoven – Brahms – Schoenberg tradition, but one would also have to concede the presence of a personal and individual understanding of these models, which have always fascinated and challenged me (although not, however, in an academic sense) – and which have helped me to express myself as I wished.

Hans Werner Henze