It’s a single-reed instrument we might describe as the ancestor of the clarinet. We’ll also hear music featuring another woodwind—the oboe—on this hour’s featured release.

But flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon and French horn are wildly diverse with single reeds, small double reeds, large double reeds, and no reeds at all. The French horn isn't even a woodwind instrument.

Aficionados of the woodwind family may take particular pleasure in the Amsterdam-based Calefax Reed Quintet, which brings together the atypical assemblage of oboe, clarinet, saxophone, bass ...