Mozart: Clarinet Quintets

Description

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791)Quintet in A Major for clarinet and string quartet, K. 581Quartet in E Flat Major for clarinet and string trio, K. 374fQuintet in F Major for clarinet, basset horn and string trio,KA. 90 (K. 580b) (completed by Franz Beyer)Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg in 1756, the son of a courtmusician who, in the year of his youngest child's birth, published aninfluential book on violin-playing. Leopold Mozart rose to occupy the positionof Vice-Kapellmeister to the Archbishop of Salzburg, but sacrificed his owncreative career to that of his son, in whom he detected early signs ofprecocious genius. With the indulgence of his patron, he was able to undertakeextended concert tours of Europe in which his son and his eider daughter Nannerlwere able to astonish audiences. The boy played both the keyboard and the violin and could improvise and soon write down his own compositions.Childhood that had brought Mozart signal success was followed by a lesssatisfactory period of adolescence largely in Salzburg, under the patronage of anew and less sympathetic Archbishop. Like his father, Mozart found opportunitiesfar too limited at home, while chances of travel were now restricted. In 1777,when leave of absence was not granted, he gave up employment in Salzburg to seeka future elsewhere, but neither Mannheim nor Paris, both musical centres of someimportance, had anything for him. His Mannheim connections, however, brought acommission for an opera in Munich in 1781, and after its successful staging hewas summoned by his patron to Vienna. There Mozart's dissatisfaction with hisposition resulted in a quarrel with the Archbishop and dismissal from hisservice.The last ten years of Mozart's life were spent in Vienna in precarious independence of both patron and immediate paternal advice, a situationaggravated by an imprudent marriage. Initial success in the opera-house and as aperformer was followed, as the decade went on, by increasing financialdifficulties. By the time of his death in December 1791, however, his fortunesseemed about to change for the better, with the success of the German opera TheMagic Flute, and the possibility of increased patronage.The clarinet in its more primitive form, a simple single-reed instrument ofcylindrical bore, has an ancient history. The chalumeau, the form of theinstrument known in 17th century Europe, was developed at the beginning of thefollowing century to give a wider and higher range, with two contrastingregisters, the so called chalumeau or lower register and the upper flute-likenotes, now possible with an additional register key. The clarinet won onlygradual acceptance as an orchestral instrument, notably in Vienna with thebrothers Johann and Anton Stadler, engaged in the Imperial wind band from 1773and from 1787 in the court orchestra. Anton Stadler, specialising in the lowerregister, experimented with a form of the instrument with a still lower range,now generally known as the basset