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Listen
At the peak of his compositional abilities and just weeks before his death,
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) composed the Clarinet Concerto in A major. He wrote it specifically for his friend and
fellow freemason, Anton Stadler. This was hardly the first time Mozart wrote for Stadler; he was the intended player for numerous
orchestral parts and several chamber works, including the "Kegelstatt Trio" K. 498 and the Clarinet Quintet K 581.
As
the final concerto, indeed probably the final orchestral work of any kind that Mozart completed, the Clarinet Concerto stands
as a supreme example of the genre and contains some of Mozart's finest writing for any instrument. He had already written
extensively for the clarinet and basset horn, and all of these works indicate a remarkable understanding of the instrument's
capabilities and idiosyncrasies. The Concerto uses the entire standard range of the instrument, from low C (basset clarinet)
to high G. Timbral differences of the clarinet's various registers are beautifully employed to vary mood and affect. The clarinet's
ability to navigate very large intervals is tastefully demonstrated in numerous passages and helps create excitement and freshness.
The orchestral colors give the concerto as a whole a specially warm, intimate tone, luminous in the Adagio, and make
the expressive, gently curving melodies particularly affecting. Mozart may not have meant the Clarinet Concerto to be his
swansong, but it has a subtle beauty of sound, a ripe abundance of melody, and a compassionate tenderness of feeling that
make it as moving a testimony to his genius as anything he ever wrote.
(This was recorded in January/February 2006 by
Michael L. Fallacaro with a Music Minus One CD)
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