Wind quartet
A wind quartet is an ensemble consisting of a mixture of brass and woodwind instruments, or music written for a combination of four such instruments. It is distinct therefore from the woodwind quartet, brass quartet, and quartets made up of a single instrument type, such as the saxophone quartet.
According to Michael Tilmouth, the repertory of quartets for wind instruments varies in instrumentation. In their divertimentos and cassations, Haydn and his contemporaries tended to combine pairs of instruments – two flutes and two horns or two clarinets with two horns, for instance. Rossini's quartets for flute, clarinet, bassoon, and horn are mostly arrangements. Franz Tausch, François René Gebauer, Nicholas Fleury, and Charles-Frederick Eler all composed works for the combination of two clarinets, horn and bassoon.
There are 20th-century works for four mixed brass and woodwind instruments by Hans Eric Apostel, Luciano Berio, Carlos Chávez, Carl Ehrenberg, and Hugo Kauder.
