27 November 1860 - 16 April 1935

Ewald was a Russian composer of music, mainly for conical brass instruments.He was born in Saint Petersburg and died in Leningrad. He also collected andpublished Russian folk songs. Ewald?s professional life, like that of many of his musicalcontemporaries, was in an entirely different field; that of a civil engineer, in which heexcelled, being appointed in 1900 as professor and manager of the Faculty ofConstruction Materials at the Institute of Civil Engineers. Brass players however areindebted to him for something very different ? a series of quintets which have becomea staple of the repertoire and which represent almost the only, and certainly the mostextended examples of original literature in the Romantic style. Ewald?s formal musicaltraining began in 1872 when he enrolled at the St Petersburg Conservatory at the ageof twelve. Founded in 1861 by Anton Rubenstein, this institution was the first of itskind in Russia and it was here that Ewald received lessons in cornet, piano, horn,cello, harmony and composition.As an adult he worked alongside fellow musicalnationalists known collectively as the Mighty Handful?Borodin, Mily Balakirev,

César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky and the most famous of all, Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

All of these men had ?day jobs? in non-musical fields.
Ewald?s contributions as a composer reflected an abiding love for brass

instruments for which he wrote his quintets scored originally for two cornets, altohorn, baritone horn and tuba.

I've edited these four quartets using Ewald's original instrumentation, but thereare also separate substitute parts for the modern brass quintet (2 trumpets, horn in F,trombone and tuba).