Clarinet Concerto (Mozart)

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Basset clarinet ( Leitner & Kraus ) against the background of the score of the 1st movement

The Concerto in A major KV 622 for clarinet and orchestra by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is one of his last works, completed around October 8, 1791. The dedicatee was Anton Stadler ; the first performance took place on October 16, 1791 in Prague. The first performance documented on a program sheet took place during Anton Stadler's European tour on March 5, 1794 in Riga.

construction

The clarinet concerto in A major is divided into three movements . The first movement is an allegro . The second movement, Adagio , can be found on many sampler and film music CDs. The third movement is a dance-like and virtuoso rondo in 6/8 time.

Historical background

The concerto was completed by Mozart as “ A Concerto for the Clarinet, for Mr. Stadler the Elder” between the end of September and mid-November 1791, about a month before his death. However, the draft was even further back. In the surviving autograph Winterthur fragment KV 621 b, the first 199 bars of the first movement of KV 622 are handed down to us as a sketch. The watermarks of both types of paper used date it to A. Tyson around 1786/1787. The fragment contains 199 bars on 24 pages. Bars 1-179 are in G major, are intended for a basset horn in G and were written down in one go. It is unusual that from bar 180 the instrument of the solo part changes. From bar 180 onwards, Mozart continued with a sharper pen and darker ink. As can be seen from the bass part, he sketches the remaining 20 bars in A major, for a basset clarinet in A. G basset horns were played by two traveling virtuosos in Vienna, Anton David and Vincent Springer, who left the city at the end of 1785. One of the two is considered by P. Poulin as the original dedicatee. In KV 621 b Mozart calls for a chromatic basset expansion of the A clarinet by a third down, i.e. it is notated around the notes, d, c sharp, and c in the small octave . The change of instruments was probably done in collaboration with A. Stadler. The Adagio and the Rondo were added later, after the success of the Stadler Quintet, in 1790 or 1791. The first basset clarinet tuned in Bb with diatonic basset tones was heard for the first time on February 20, 1788 in Vienna. It was invented and built for Anton Stadler by the imperial court instrument maker Theodor Lotz. About a year later, an A-tuning instrument was also created. The complete Bassettonchromatik was gradually built to, as historical newspaper reports show. There are more primitive basset clarinets preserved in London and Paris museums that are dated around 1770. Like the basset horn, the basset clarinet was invented several times and in different shapes and moods (A, B, C). Mozart's clarinet concerto is the only one that has survived for this instrument, and his last solo concerto .

From Mozart's letter to his wife Constanze dated 7./8. October 1791, after completing the transcription of the clarinet concerto:

"[...] Now my résumé; - Immediately after you sailed, I played with Hr: von Mozart /: who wrote the opera for Schikaneder: / 2 Parthien billiards. - then I sold my little one at 2 o'clock - then I had Joseph call me the Primus and get black coffé, smoking a wonderful pipe toback; then I instrumented almost the entire Rondó from the Stadtler. [...] "

The autograph score is lost. After Mozart's death, three printed parts of the publishers Breitkopf & Härtel / Leipzig, André / Offenbach and Sieber / Paris appeared almost simultaneously in 1801-2. They show a largely identical arrangement for the normal A clarinet without a basset register. In a review of the Breitkopf edition in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung from March 1802:

“The reviewer, who has this splendid concerto in score before him, can give all good clarinetists the joyful assurance that no one other than Mozart can only have written it; that consequently, in view of the beautiful, regular, and tasteful composition, it must be the first clarinet concerto in the world; for as far as the reviewer is aware, there is only one of his [...] Finally, Recensent finds it necessary to note that Mozart wrote this concerto for a clarinet that goes down to C. So z. B. all of the following passages in the principal voice are moved to the lower octave. [...] "

In the first movement he leads: bar 94 (three last eighth notes), bar 146/147 (first 16th group of each), bar 190 (2nd quarter), bar 198 (2nd quarter), bar 206 (2nd quarter) , Measure 207 (1st quarter), measure 208 (2nd quarter), and measure 209 (1st quarter).

"[...] And in this way a lot of places have been moved and changed. This is particularly noticeable in the Adagio: bars 45–51, bar 57, etc. […] But since such clarinets that go down to C below still have to be counted among the rare instruments, the editors are in favor of We owe these transfers and changes for the ordinary clarinet, however, whether the concerto won through. Perhaps it would have been just as good to have published it entirely according to the original, and to notice these shifts and changes through smaller notes at best. "

Josef Janous played the first modern performance of a reconstructed version on June 28, 1951, after Milan Kostohryz, his teacher, had what was probably the first basset clarinet of the 20th century built by the Prague clarinet maker Rudolf Trejdal. A Selmer A clarinet received a longer lower piece, the 4 basset keys were operated with the right thumb. The second instrument was made by Wilhelm Rey from Münster in 1966 near Trejdal. In 1968 Hans Rudolf Stalder had Rudolf Uebel (stamped FA Uebel) build an instrument with which he performed a concert and a sound recording that same year. In 1984 Sabine Meyer had a modern basset clarinet in A made by Herbert Wurlitzer in order to play Mozart's clarinet concerto (and also his clarinet quintet) in a reconstructed version with again lower passages. Other well-known solo clarinetists followed later, e.g. B. Alessandro Carbonare, Martin Fröst and Sharon Kam with likewise modern basset clarinets as well as the American clarinetist Charles Neidich, the Italian Luca Lucchetta and the Dutch Vlad Weverbergh with replicas of the basset clarinet by Stadler.

Further reconstructions of KV 622 for the basset clarinet have u. a. made: Jirí Kratochvil / Prague, Heinz Deinzer / Hanover, Ernst Hess for HR Stalder and the Augsburg Concert 1968, Henle Urtext Munich / ed. H.Wiese (2003), Pamela Weston / Vienna Universal Edition 1986, Franz Giegling, Bärenreiter (for the NMA 1977), Alan Hacker, Mainz, Schott, Eric Hoeprich, R.Wehle and S.Meyer / Mainz Schott 2015, Helmut Eisel (free version), and T. Grass (Willems Music Productions 2018). An improvement on the conventional version for the A clarinet have u. a. R. Wehle and S. Meyer / Schott, and T. Grass / Willems Music Productions.

The sentences

1st movement: Allegro (A major)

The Allegro is the longest movement of the concert at around 12 minutes. The piece begins with the orchestral exposure; the clarinet does not begin as a soloist until measure 57. The orchestral exposition is divided into three main themes, which in turn are divided into two small section themes.
After the introduction of the eight-bar first theme, played piano by the clarinet and the two violins , the first four bars are repeated forte with the addition of flute and bassoon.

In a new part with the second section theme, the accompaniment on the viola and cello is reminiscent of the previous theme. In the main voices, quarters are now played with a sixteenth-note movement. In the accompanying voices, quarter, eighth and sixteenth notes predominate. The frequently recurring motif is the motif in measure 16/17 [repetition in measure 343/344]. The topic ends with a powerful ending that occurs at each end of the topic.

In measure 25 the first section theme is taken up again, but continued differently. In all parts the first 1½ bars are almost identical to the beginning, then an extension follows, which all parts follow. The violin II repeats the previous measure again to continue playing the theme with the clarinet and violin I. After the topic has started, the viola and cello serve as accompanying instruments. This use is reminiscent of a kind of canon. Violin II begins and is imitated two beats later by viola and violoncello and one measure later by clarinet and violin I. This is followed by a change in the main voices to violin II and viola, which are supported by the other instruments in the slower part. This is the second section topic. Viola is supported by violoncello, later by bassoon, violin II by violin I, clarinet by flute. The subject ends again from this conclusion.

Then comes the third theme, which appears several times throughout the piece in different voices. A trill movement with four or three eighth notes alternates between clarinet with violin I and violin II. The other parts except for the viola accompany with eighths on the 1, 2, 3 and 4 beat. Viola accompanied by sixteenths. Then the first four eighths are dropped and only the trill motif is repeated alternately until it forms a kind of end. This is where the first section topic of the third topic ends.

In the second section theme of the third theme, the main voices begin with an ascending half A major triad in quarters and eighth notes. This scheme is repeated a third lower and merges into dotted eighth notes with sixteenth notes (up to bar 52). This rhythmic scheme is repeated (with a quarter and eighth and eighth rest at the beginning) and completed with sixteenth movements. Only then does the solo clarinet begin with the theme of bar 1. The three themes usually begin in piano, with a sudden transition into forte.

Furthermore, the clarinet acquires a dull character on its second solo appearance. This is because the key changes from major to minor (up to bar 98).

2nd movement: Adagio (D major)

The second movement is written as a three-part song (ABA form). It is one of Mozart's best-known pieces and appears, for example, as a film score in Out of Africa . The two-part, very cantilever 16-bar main theme is first performed by the solo clarinet and repeated by the orchestra. In the middle section the clarinet takes on a leading role, after which the repetition of the theme is concluded with a coda .

3rd movement: Rondo: Allegro (A major)

The third movement is written in a free rondo form, which can be schematically paraphrased as A - B - A ′ - C - B ′ - A - Coda. The main theme in A major has a cheerful and dance-like character. After the first repetition of the theme, there is a modulation to F sharp minor, and the piece takes on virtuoso traits, which are again intensified in the coda.

literature

  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Concerto A major for Clarinet and Orchestra K. 622. Edited by Rudolf Gerber. Foreword by Alan Hacker. Ernst Eulenburg, London et al. 1971.
  • Christian Gailly: KV 622. Novel. Berliner Taschenbuch-Verlag, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-8333-0080-9 .

Web links

Commons : Clarinet Concerto in A major  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ = 4½ guilders ≈ € 80
  2. ↑ Riding horse