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Mozart's Clarinet Quintet Mozart's Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, K. 581, was written in 1789 for the clarinetist Anton Stadler. A clarinet quintet is a work for one clarinet and a string quartet (two violins, a viola and a cello). Although originally written for basset clarinet, it is almost always played on a clarinet in A or B-flat. It was Mozart's only clarinet quintet, and one of the earliest and best-known works written especially for the instrument. It remains exceptionally popular today due to its lyrical melodies, with the second movement the best known. The composer indicated that the work was finished on 29 September 1789. This quintet is sometimes referred to as the Stadler Quintet; Mozart so described it in a letter of April 1790.
Structure It consists of four movements:
1. Allegro The first movement sets the mood for the entire piece. It has beautiful moving lines in all of the parts and in the second half there is a virtuoso run that is passed throughout the strings, based on material from the second section of the exposition. 2. Larghetto The second movement, in a sonata form with a six-bar transition in place of a central development section, opposes a first section which is mostly a long-breathed clarinet melody over muted strings, to a second group of themes in which - as in the first movement - several upward runs of scales are given to the first violin, alternating with brief phrases of clarinet melody. These scales are given to the clarinet in the recapitulation, and then in the last few bars of the movement, more chromatic than the rest, the scales turn into triplet arpeggios traded between the strings under the closing clarinet phrases. 3. Menuetto The first trio of the third movement is for the strings alone, with a theme that has a signature acciaccatura every few notes. The second trio is a clarinet solo over the strings, whereas in the minuet the roles were distributed more evenly. 4. Allegretto con variazioni The finale has five variations. The theme is in two repeated halves, with the clarinet joining in but only for a few of its bars. As often with Mozart, phrase structure is generally the same throughout the variations even if other qualities change- the theme consists of four four-bar phrases (Mozart is often more irregular in his phrasing than this), the first going harmonically from A to E, the second back from E to A, etc. ... and likewise with the variations. The first of its variations gives the clarinet a new theme, in counterpoint with the theme of the variations divided amongst the quartet. The second alternates phrases for quartet only with phrases for full quintet, the latter answering the former. The third, in A minor, also begins without clarinet, with a viola melody- also with signature acciaccatura- but the clarinet joins in to finish. The major mode returns for the fourth variation, as does the main theme to the accompaniment of semiquaver virtuosity - given to the clarinet only in the first repeated half, first violin and clarinet in the second. There are four bars of dramatic interruption leading to a pause; the next variation is a lyrical Adagio. A transition brings us to an Allegro coda, containing much of a variation itself. Analysis There are a number of similarities between this quintet and Mozart's Clarinet Concerto. Both are in the same key of A major and were written for the same soloist, Anton Stadler. Both pieces are written for the basset clarinet which has an extended lower range. Also, the first theme of the first movement of each piece begins with a falling major third. Also, both the second movements are in the same key (D major) and have similar character, although they have different tempo markings. There is a direct quotation of two bars in the clarinet line in the second movement of the Concerto of that in the Quintet. Mozart also wrote a trio for clarinet, viola and piano for Stadler, the so-called Kegelstatt Trio, in 1786. Alfred Einstein (Mozart: His Character and Work, page 194) notes that while the clarinet "predominates as primus inter pares" (first amongst equals) this is nonetheless "chamber-music work of the finest kind" and the roles are distributed more equally than they would be in a more concertante quintet for wind and strings.
Notes from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarinet_Quintet_(Mozart)
This Recording - Technical Assessment Original surface quality: As with many of the NGS releases from this period, surface quality was poor, with incessant swishing an almost every side, and a high build-up of noise at each side end, some significantly worse than others. Other notes: Some unexpected and bizarre hum tones around 205-210 Hz were present on a number of sides. Given that this was an acoustic recording it's impossible to guess where these came from. Writing in the Summer 2008 issue of Classic Record Collector ("NGS-The First Record Society", pp.42-48), Nick Morgan notes the following:
National Gramophonic Society recordings - a technical perspective
The vast majority of the original discs came from Gramophone magazine's own near-mint collection, carefully preserved in the EMI vaults at Hayes and largely unplayed for many decades. Where a choice of discs was present, naturally the very best sides were chosen for transfer, which took place at Pristine Audio over the spring, summer and autumn of 2006. Discs were carefully cleaned and a choice of custom-made stylii were available to achieve the optimum replay possible. Transfers were made at 24-bit resolution and then archived in 32-bit sound. Some initial restorations were carried out at the time of transfer, but all of the recordings presented here have been newly XR-remastered, starting in February 2008, directly from those high-quality transfers. Without the benefits of modern audio restoration technologies, it is safe to say that a good number of the Society's output would be beyond the listening tolerance of all but the most devoted and dedicated music-lover. Of the 165 numbered discs it is not until we reach discs 103-4 (the Malipiero String Quartet No. 2) that something truly remarkable happens sonically, a result of switching allegiances to the Columbia Record Company for recording and pressing duties. Prior to this the results are variable in the extreme - and the problems don't really stop after disc 104 either - we are still talking about the early days of electrical recording, and it seems clear from this history of the Society that money was tight. But for the 1920's listener, these matters would surely have been secondary to being able to hear any of these works at all, as the National Gramophonic Society's remit was to record music that had been ignored by the other record companies. The challenge for the 21st Century therefore is to render these recordings in such a way as to be faithful to the musicians as well as sparing the listener too much pain. I've tried to strike a careful balance between noise reduction and the dangers of over-processing and deadening the sound which, in some cases, may leave some of the blemishes more obvious than you might be used to hearing - if this is the case in any particular recording, I can only respond with "well you should have heard it before I started work on it!" There are many fine recording here, and I hope you will enjoy them as much as I have. Andrew Rose, March 2008
The National Gramophonic Society The National Gramophonic Society (NGS) was founded in 1923 by the novelist Compton Mackenzie to promote music which was ignored by major music companies. The Society was established for the recording and publication by subscription of classical music, principally chamber music, which was of limited circulation. Prominent on the committee for the selection of material was Walter Willson Cobbett, who was joined by Spencer Dyke (leader of a string quartet), W. R. Anderson, Alec Robinson, Peter Latham and Compton MacKenzie. Cobbett (b 1847), a chamber-music specialist, had founded the Cobbett Competition in 1905 for a short form of String Quartet composition or 'Phantasy', and for other short chamber works, prizes won variously by William Yeates Hurlestone (1876-1906, pianist) (1905), Frank Bridge (1908), John Ireland (1909), J. Cliffe Forrester (1916), H. Waldo Warner (viola of the London Quartet) (1916), York Bowen (1918) and Cecil Armstrong Gibbs (1919). In 1921 he was offering further awards to Royal Academy and Royal College of Music graduates, and commissioned many new chamber works from English composers. The National Gramophonic Society was therefore an expression of this impetus to the development of the taste for modern chamber music. The records, issued on 12-inch 78rpm (or in some cases 80rpm) discs with distinctive yellow labels, included the first-ever recordings of familiar works such as the C major quintet of Schubert and Brahms's clarinet quintet, along with pieces (then relatively little known) by Henry Purcell, Vivaldi and Mozart. The organization also helped several living composers such as Ralph Vaughan Williams, Arnold Bax, Peter Warlock (first recording of The Curlew), Eugene Goossens, Arnold Schönberg (original chamber version of Verklärte Nacht) and Sir Edward Elgar to gain greater recognition for their works. The repertoire consisted largely of chamber music, featuring the Spencer Dyke Quartet and the International String Quartet, but included some works for small orchestra and a few vocal items. Musicians who took part included John Barbirolli (as both cellist and conductor), the clarinettists Charles Draper and Frederick Thurston, the oboeist Leon Goossens, the violinist Adila Fachiri, and the pianists Donald Francis Tovey, Harold Craxton, Kathleen Long and Ethel Bartlett. The NGS ceased operations in 1931. Notes from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Gramophonic_Society
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