Platypus Dance - woodwind quintet

Dusting off old woodwind quintets seems to be all the rage in this section of the Forum lately, so I'll share one of mine. This is my small tribute to the studio musicians who wrote and recorded the soundtracks for the early Hollywood cartoons of the 1930s.

MP3 and score are both one extra click away at my website: https://sites.google.com/view/tomstatlermusic/platypus-dance . License and copyright information is there, as well as some backstory for those who enjoy that sort of thing.

This one's all just for fun (unlike a lot of my other pieces)!

This is a delightful fun work with a very light touch in the orchestration.  I do have two questions though.  I noticed for a good segment of the work you have the flute and oboe in octaves - with professional players this might not be an issue ... yet playing in pitch can be a challenge.  I also noticed that the oboe is playing above the Flute (measure 76 and measure 80 for example) ... are you looking for a particular texture?  The high E in the Oboe for a really competent player should sing out - yet I wonder about the blend with the Flute?   In measure 80 the flute is quite low with the C with the Oboe above with the A.  I am not sure with the dynamics - the Flute will be sufficient with the Oboe on top.  Again top notch players will work it out.  I know in the orchestra my very competent Flutist is always fussing with tuning and oboists never have a perfect scale in their oboes - and lets not get started on reeds!

Thanks for the nice comment, MJF. I'm not too worried about the flute-oboe octave unisons. I grew up as a clarinetist so I know that real intonation isn't the same thing as perfect intonation. (I once worked briefly with a composer who was a pianist and organist, and who never understood why the piano piece she had arranged for oboe, clarinet, alto sax, and french horn didn't sound properly in tune like it did on piano.) The nature of this piece is such that it can stand up to a little imperfection, and octave unison isn't as dangerous as true unison. Still, I have to make some assumptions about who might eventually be playing my piece, and I do assume that they can play in tune. At bar 76-80, I'm relying on the tone color of the high oboe to cut through the other voices, but the flutist will need to understand what's going on and interpret their forte in context.