POULENC- Sextet for Piana and Wind Quintet - I. Allegro Vivace

Definately one of my favorite pieces for woodwind quintet. The Poulenc "Sextour" is quite a mouthfull for any quintet to swallow, but definately one of those pieces that you just love to play. Its very demanding, as far as technique with its complex rhythmic motives, mainly comprised of chromatic sixteenth note passages that end abruptly as they are handed off to other instruments.
This movement is almost a piece within itself. I always thought of it as four separate parts, in a A-B-Aprime-A-C type of form, thats a very broad perspective, but generally speaking, it works. It has this opening exposition that really presses the dynamics of the group, as well as their intuitiveness and rhythmic integrity right from the beginning, having to really listen and balance while playing some of the challenging rhythmic and technical things that come up. There is a frantic sense almost to the opening of the piece, accents are place in strange places, and there is A TON of syncopation throughout the opening.
The B kind of section completely changes character and becomes this largo, processional-like section using extremely chromatic melodic lines, and sometimes unstable harmonic backgrounds. One of my favorite parts is when the flute and oboe play an ascending chromatic scale starting on a c, and the flute is flutter tongueing, passing the melody off to the clarinet. This builds to a huge climax that has the piano playing tons of notes and building crescendos, that then quiets back down, at this point there is a huge usage of parallel fourths and fifths rather than thirds and sixths as Poulenc was starting to mess with traditional harmonies.
With the help of the bassoon bringing things into a little more bouncy mode, the main theme returns exactly the same as it was origninally presented for a short time, ending on this really strange clashy cadence, that carries into a march type of section with more strict, dotted eighth\sixteenths that give a military feel. The frantic nature that is so characteristic of the piece returns, though the exposition does not. The ending of the piece is entirely new material that could be thought of as a cadential extension or transition of some type, and the ending is very abrupt.
I can actually see how this could be a rounded binary form, because essentially there are two sections to the piece, an A and a B. The main theme returns in the original key.
Hopefully you all will eventually hear this played LIVE! :)