Quintet No. 2, Op. 132, for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Horn and Bassoon
Giulio Briccialdi was born on 2 March 1818 in Terni, Italy. His father, Giovanni Battista Briccialdi, gave him his first flute lessons, though he was essentially self-taught.
Unwilling to become a priest as his family wished after his father's death, he fled to Rome and became a flutist in a theatre orchestra. There he received composition lessons from a singer of the Vatican Chapel named Ravagli.
By around the age of 17, Briccialdi was already teaching at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia. In 1836 he moved to Naples, and the following year became flute teacher to the Count of Syracuse, brother of the king. In 1839 he went to Milan, and in 1841 to Vienna. As a virtuoso he toured all of Europe and also spent time in America. He lived for a while in London, where, following instructions from the firm Rudall & Rose, he had a flute built with a B-flat key, thereby perfecting the Boehm system. Further technical improvements to his design were made by Emilio Piana in Florence. There he taught flute at the conservatory from 1870 onward, training numerous pupils. He also founded a workshop in that city producing flutes to his patent. After his death in 1881, his widow Rosa continued to run it.
His first wind quintet, Op. 124, was published around 1875 by Schott in Mainz; the present Quintet No. 2, Op. 132, appears here in its first edition.
Briccialdi's wind quintets are excellent music, treating all the wind instruments with an ideal command that can hardly be praised enough. They convey the lyrical, singing quality of Italian opera of the period, with hints of Bellini or Rossini shining through again and again — without ever being mere copies of those works.
