Program Notes

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Clarinet Quintet in A Major, K. 581 (1789)

Notes for: July 25, 2006

Mozart first heard the clarinet in London at the age of 8 when both he and the instrument were still musical novelties. As his skill and self-confidence as a composer matured, he used the clarinet increasingly in his orchestral works and operas, but he was reluctant about introducing it into his chamber music. While he was attracted by the instrument’s tone quality and unexcelled clarity in rapid passages, he apparently questioned its ability to blend in small instrumental groups.

The influence that eventually changed his mind was Anton Stadler, the first notable clarinet virtuoso in Vienna. Mozart and Stadler met in Salzburg in 1781, and their friendship ripened in Vienna where they were members of the same music circle and Masonic lodge. To Mozart, the relationship was not entirely rewarding – Stadler cheated the composer in money matters at a time when the latter was in financial straits, and for a while he lived like a parasite in Mozart’s home.

Their personal relations notwithstanding, Stadler helped Mozart realize the still untapped potential of the clarinet. Inspired by Stadler, Mozart wrote four great works involving or featuring the instrument – the Quintet for Piano and Winds, K. 452; the Trio for Clarinet, Viola and Piano, K. 498; the Clarinet Concerto, K. 622, and this quintet.

The quintet was completed on September 29, 1789, and was first performed on December 22, 1789, at a concert given by the Society of Musicians for the benefit of widows and orphans. Stadler, of course, played the clarinet, and Mozart, his favorite chamber music assignment, the viola.

What gives the quintet its unique place in chamber music is Mozart’s consummate skill in balancing the distinctive tone color and technical resources of the clarinet with those of the strings. While the clarinet cannot help but be conspicuous, it never protrudes like a solo instrument and never overshadows the first violin in agility or bravura. It alternates with the first violin in announcing themes and takes frequent rests to give the other instruments a chance. Mozart was particularly imaginative in using for special effect the chalumeau or lowest register of the clarinet with its rich, dark and throaty sound.

The first movement, in sonata form, is carefully constructed to establish and maintain a sound working relationship between the clarinet and its partners. Note, for example, the complementary roles played by the strings and the clarinet in presenting the first theme, the clarinet’s restatement of the graceful second theme against the gentle syncopation of the strings, and the subtle elaboration of this passage in the recapitulation. Note also the passage in the development in which rising and falling arpeggios in the clarinet shimmer above running 16ths that pass from one string instrument to another.

The slow movement is a romance: the strings put on mutes, and the clarinet sings a flowing aria-like melody. The minuet has two trios, the first in a minor key with the clarinet silent, and the second a dialogue in the style of a ländler (an Austrian country dance) between the clarinet and the first violin.

The finale is a theme and variations of such lucidity that it is frequently used as a classroom exercise in musical analysis. The theme is really a modified version of the motif that opened the first movement. Six variations follow, of which the third is in minor and the fifth is slowed to a poignant adagio. Listen for the plaintive little tune for the viola in the third variation; how violist Mozart must have thanked composer Mozart for that one!

Copyright © 2006 by Willard J. Hertz

Notes for: August 7, 2018

Like Brahms, Mozart fell in love with the sound of the clarinet late in his life. That love suffuses the Clarinet Quintet, one of Mozart’s most beloved compositions. It is a work of melodic eloquence, distinguished by what Jan Swafford describes as “the grace of his earlier music, but the weight and depth of his last pieces.” Throughout, it is genial, good-humored, and filled with bountiful pleasures.

Mozart wrote the Clarinet Quintet for his friend and fellow Freemason, the clarinetist Anton Stadler. (Mozart referred to it as “Stadler’s Quintet.”) Stadler may have been a less than admirable character – he allegedly borrowed money that he never repaid, and Mozart’s sister-in-law described him as one of the composer’s “false friends, secret bloodsuckers, and worthless persons who served only to amuse him at the table and intercourse with whom injured his reputation.” However, he was a lively companion and, more to the point, a brilliant clarinetist. As one critic wrote of his playing, “One would never have thought that a clarinet could imitate the human voice to such perfection.” Stadler experimented with extending the clarinet’s range, inventing an instrument that added four low notes. This instrument, known as the basset clarinet, is thought to be the one for which Mozart originally wrote his Quintet.

The Clarinet Quintet’s superb first movement, with one genial theme after another, sets the tone for the entire work. The strings introduce each of three themes, with the clarinet responding in a different way each time: it adds embellishments to the first theme, repeats the second theme in a minor key, and completes the strings’ statement of the third theme. In the relatively short development section, all the instruments pass arpeggios back and forth, creating rich sonorities.

The clarinet comes to the fore as a singing instrument in the spacious Larghetto, a long cantilena played over muted strings. All the instruments get their turn in the Menuetto – the strings in the minor-key first trio, the clarinet in the second, a ländler-like peasant dance. Alfred Einstein described the expansive last movement – a theme and variations – as “brief and amusing with all its variety and richness, serious and lovable.” It features a satisfying variety of moods and textures, beginning with the first variation, where the clarinet plays in counterpoint to the strings’ restatement of the theme. The second variation focuses on rhythm. In the third, in A Minor, the viola takes the lead. The clarinet gets a virtuoso turn in the fourth variation, after which the music slows to a lyrical Adagio for the final variation. Then it’s back to Allegro for a lively coda that brings the Quintet to its cheerful end.

Copyright © 2018 by Barbara Leish