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The music of Respighi can, perhaps, be placed into two general groups: a more popular set of music which is colorfully programmatic, with fairly articulate development and invention, and a second group of melting-pot eclectism. The Concerto in modo misolido can be said to be in the former group, but the Concerto a cinque is firmly in the latter.

The Concerto a cinque is a much later work, from 1933, for solo oboe, trumpet, violin, double bass and piano, with strings. Undoubtedly this is an unusual, if not ambitious, combination of instruments – but it is hardly different from the manner of a baroque multiple concerto. Ever the neo-classicist, Respighi here elects to give the music a more modern treatment, opening with short, punctuative phrases in establishing the home key (D minor).