KARACHI, June 19: Playing the first of their three concerts in Pakistan, Germany’s arirang-Quintet put on a lively demonstration of their prowess over the woodwind and brass family of instruments. Playing at the city’s FTC Auditorium, the quintet will also perform shows in Lahore and Islamabad.

Presented by the Goethe-Institut and the embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, the quintet played four pieces from their extensive repertoire of classical, romantic and contemporary music. Formed in 2002, the quintet consists of Friedrich Haberstock on the flute, Jorg Schneider on the oboe, Steffen Dillner on the clarinet, Sebastian Schindler on the horn and bassoonist Monika Schneider.

The arirang-Quintet started off their performance with three movements from Danish composer Otto Mortensen’s Quintett. Swaying along with the flow of the music, the animated performers did a marvellous job with the third movement of the piece, Lento – Allegro vivace.

It started off more sombre than the earlier two pieces but suddenly changed in tempo and became quite upbeat, resembling the work of German Baroque composer George Handel at times, sounding layered and vivacious.

The first movement of the second piece, modern French composer Jacques Ibert’s Trois Pieces Breves, matched the Lento movement of Quintett in tone and tempo and was followed by a short Andante, finishing up with Assez lent – Allegro Scherzando.

Following a break in the proceedings, the quintet performed movements from the classical master, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and modern Danish composer Carl Nielsen.

The quintet was formed by members of the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, or Young German Orchestra, which is considered one of Germany’s leading symphony orchestras and features 100 or so musicians from various nationalities.

The current members of the arirang-Quintet met and decided to join forces after touring North and South Korea with the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie. Incidentally, their name is derived from a traditional Korean song which expresses, in simple melodies, the Koreans’ attitude towards life and their feeling of togetherness. Hence it is not hard to understand why the group chose to play such vibrant, dare one say bouncy numbers during their Karachi performance.

But simple here should not be mistaken for minimalist, for there was masterly cohesion between the performers who demonstrated their agility over performing classical tunes with poise and polish.