The quintet ends with a joyful fourth movement. The trombone solos over asymmetrically placed fifths. The focus then shifts to the horn, which exhibits a split personality between raucous and gentle utterances. High dolce figures on the trumpet conclude the work. Fireworks is a celebration of sounds and syllables, generally divorced from any meaning beyond the physical sounds themselves.
Timbres change from note to note.
Six Miniatures were first heard at the Guggenheim Museum in 1968. Despite the combining of two quintets in the scoring, the music gives no impression of a choir of woodwinds being pitted against a choir of brass. Instead, the instruments are treated individually. The first movement could safely be called a passacaglia, save for an interlude and the ending in which the theme is inverted for the first time. The theme itself is built on an alternation between whole and semi-tones and between a minor and a major seventh.