The scoring of the Divertimento for Eight Wind Instruments for two each of oboes, clarinets, horns and bassoons is that of the Harmoniemusik (wind-ensemble music) of the late eighteenth century, recalling in particular Mozart's serenades for the same forces. The Classical model would have appealed to Klein's often Neo-Classical bent, and he may well have been familiar with Stravinsky's Octet for wind instruments (1923), itself somewhat indebted to Mozart. Another influence would have been Janáček's wind sextet Mládí (‘Youth’), composed a year after Stravinsky's work, a piece with which Klein was familiar.

The Divertimento betrays some lack of experience in writing for winds. The published score has allowed the editor, Vojtěch Saudek, to make some sensible practical adjustments, and to iron out deficiencies of fine-tuning with regard to notation. Like most, if not all, of his pre-Terezín music, Klein never heard this work performed. Had he done so, some of the more unidiomatic wind-writing, such as those moments which might be better suited to strings, would have been addressed. Nonetheless, the material is most certainly conceived to capitalise on the specific resonance and timbres of Harmoniemusik, and the overall effect is that of a successfully designed and engaging ensemble piece which reflects the circumstances of its composition.

The music is replete with the nervous energy which was already a characteristic feature of his output, with some striking ideas. The opening spiky march, Tempo di Marcia, is arresting from its first to last notes, perhaps recalling the sardonic humour of Prokofiev and the harmonic textures of Stravinsky. There is something burlesque and dance-like in the light-hearted Allegretto scherzando which follows, capturing some of the Gallic charm of Poulenc, with Prokofiev-like sarcasm. The first two movements demonstrate Klein's increasing confidence in handling musical structure. It is in the third movement where, as in The Poplar Tree of the previous year, one can observe something which is more personal. His inscription at the end of that piece – ‘These were the best of times’ – now seems to have even more resonance when one considers the point of departure for the third movement of the Divertimento. It is a set of variations on the fourteenth section of Janáček's The Diary of One who Disappeared, the text of the song ‘Slnéčko sa zdvihá’ (‘The Sun Climbs High’), asking the question ‘What have I lost now, who can give it back again?’.