This edition of Onslow's fifteenth String Quintet has the advantage of being either a two Viola or a two Cello quintet as it is published with parts for two cellists or two violists. It is a major work with good parts for all players with the 1st Violin part having a particularly large numbers of fast semi quavers (sixteenths) in the outer movements.It is known as 'The Bullet' due to the circumstances of its composition: Onslow was boar hunting in the Auvergne when a theme occurred to him. He dismounted and sat on a nearby fallen tree trunk and wrote it down. A boar then burst from the bushes and his companions fired missing the boar and hitting Onslow.The quintet was completed on his recovery and graphically illustrates his sufferings. George Onslow an Anglo-French composer was born in Clermont-Ferrand in July 1784 and died there in October 1853.
