Clarinet Quintet (Brahms)
Encyclopedia
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...

's Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op. 115 was written in 1891 for the clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

tist Richard Mühlfeld
Richard Mühlfeld
Richard Mühlfeld was a German clarinettist who inspired Johannes Brahms and Gustav Jenner to write chamber works including the instrument...

. It is widely regarded as Brahms's supreme achievement in chamber music
Chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...

.

The piece is known for its autumnal mood. It consists of a clarinet in A with a string quartet
String quartet
A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...

 and has a duration of approximately thirty-five minutes.

Clarinet Quintets

At the time Brahms started composing his Clarinet Quintet, only a few works had been composed for this type of ensemble. Examples include those by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

, Anton Reicha
Anton Reicha
Anton Reicha was a Czech-born, later naturalized French composer. A contemporary and lifelong friend of Beethoven, Reicha is now best remembered for his substantial early contribution to the wind quintet literature and his role as a teacher – his pupils included Franz Liszt and Hector Berlioz...

, Carl Maria von Weber
Carl Maria von Weber
Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school....

, Franz Krommer
Franz Krommer
Franz Krommer was a Czech composer of classical music, whose seventy-year life began the year of the death of George Frideric Handel and ended a few years after that of Ludwig van Beethoven.-Life:The main events of his life were somewhat as follows:* From 1773 to 1776,...

, Alexander Glazunov
Alexander Glazunov
Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov was a Russian composer of the late Russian Romantic period, music teacher and conductor...

, Heinrich Bärmann
Heinrich Bärmann
Heinrich Joseph Baermann was a clarinet virtuoso of the Romantic era who is generally considered as being not only an outstanding performer of his time, but highly influential in the creation of several composers' compositions.In his youth, Baermann took lessons from Joseph Beer...

, and Thomas Täglichsbeck
Thomas Täglichsbeck
Thomas Täglichsbeck was a German violinist and composer.His family settled in Voigtland, Lower Saxony in 1800. Following violin lessons from his father, Johann Täglichsbeck, young Thomas moved to Munich where he studied with Pietro Rovelli...

. Brahms modeled his composition after Mozart's
Clarinet Quintet (Mozart)
Wolfgang Amadeus 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 . Although originally written for basset clarinet, it is almost always played on a clarinet in A or B-flat...

.

Brahms and Mühlfeld

Brahms had retired from composing prior to listening to Richard Mühlfeld
Richard Mühlfeld
Richard Mühlfeld was a German clarinettist who inspired Johannes Brahms and Gustav Jenner to write chamber works including the instrument...

 play. Brahms may have met Mühlfeld already when Hans von Bülow
Hans von Bülow
Hans Guido Freiherr von Bülow was a German conductor, virtuoso pianist, and composer of the Romantic era. He was one of the most famous conductors of the 19th century, and his activity was critical for establishing the successes of several major composers of the time, including Richard...

 was directing the Meiningen
Meiningen
Meiningen is a town in Germany - located in the southern part of the state of Thuringia and is the district seat of Schmalkalden-Meiningen. It is situated on the river Werra....

 orchestra. But it was Fritz Steinbach
Fritz Steinbach
Fritz Steinbach was a German conductor and composer who was particularly associated with the works of Johannes Brahms. Born in Grünsfeld, he was the brother of conductor Emil Steinbach. He studied at the Leipzig Conservatory and in Vienna. Among his teachers were Martin Gustav Nottebohm and Anton...

, von Bülow's successor, who brought Mühlfeld's playing to the attention of Brahms in March 1891. Brahms was very enthusiastic about Mühlfeld. That summer at Bad Ischl
Bad Ischl
Bad Ischl is a spa town in Austria. It lies in the southern part of Upper Austria, at the Traun River in the centre of the Salzkammergut region. The town consists of the Katastralgemeinden Ahorn, Bad Ischl, Haiden, Jainzen, Kaltenbach, Lauffen, Lindau, Pfandl, Perneck, Reiterndorf and Rettenbach...

, he composed the Clarinet Quintet and his Clarinet Trio Op. 114
Clarinet Trio (Brahms)
The Trio for clarinet, cello and piano in A Minor, Op. 114, was one of four chamber works featuring clarinet composed by Johannes Brahms in rapid succession after emerging from retirement toward the end of his life. Brahms was inspired to compose these works by the playing of clarinettist Richard...

, both of them for Mühlfeld. He later also composed two Clarinet Sonatas
Clarinet Sonatas (Brahms)
The Clarinet Sonatas, Op. 120, Nos. 1 and 2 are a pair of works written for clarinet and piano by the Romantic composer Johannes Brahms. They were written in 1894 and are dedicated to the clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld. The sonatas stem from a period in Brahms’s life where he “discovered” the beauty...

.

Performances

The quintet received its first private performance on 24 November 1891 in Meiningen, with Richard Mühlfeld and the Joachim Quartet, led by Joseph Joachim
Joseph Joachim
Joseph Joachim was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, composer and teacher. A close collaborator of Johannes Brahms, he is widely regarded as one of the most significant violinists of the 19th century.-Origins:...

 who often collaborated with Brahms. The public premiere was on 12 December 1891 in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

.

It soon received performances across Europe, including London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 and Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 both with the original and other ensembles.

Structure

The piece consists of four movements.
  1. Allegro
    Tempo
    In musical terminology, tempo is the speed or pace of a given piece. Tempo is a crucial element of any musical composition, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece.-Measuring tempo:...

     in B minor, in 6:8 time
  2. Adagio in B major, in 3:4 time modulating into B minor and then B-flat minor and back to B major
  3. Andantino
    Andantino
    Andantino can refer to:*Andantino , an Italian tempo marking meaning a tempo that is slightly faster than Andante but slower than Moderato*Andantino , a Jerome Robbins ballet*Andantino , a two-player board game...

     in D major, in common time evolving into Presto non assai, ma con sentimento in B minor in 2:4 time
  4. Con moto in B minor, in 2:4 with a key transition to B major returning to B minor into a meter of 3:8 and then transforming into 6:8 time

First Movement

Like the quintet by Mozart, the strings begin the piece. This movement sets an autumnal mood for the rest of the composition. One phrase, towards the middle played by the clarinet, sounds closely related to one in the first movement of Carl Maria von Weber's Clarinet Concerto No. 1 in F minor
Clarinet Concerto No. 1 (Weber)
Carl Maria von Weber wrote his Clarinet Concerto No. 1 in F minor, Op. 73 for the clarinettist Heinrich Bärmann in 1811. The piece is considered a gem in the instrument's repertoire. It is written for clarinet in B-flat. The work consists of three movements in the form of fast, slow,...

. This was possibly inserted because when Brahms listened to Richard Mühlfeld
Richard Mühlfeld
Richard Mühlfeld was a German clarinettist who inspired Johannes Brahms and Gustav Jenner to write chamber works including the instrument...

 at his recital, he was playing this concerto.

Second Movement

The reflective melody is first introduced by the clarinet. Later, the mood changes back to the gloomy atmosphere of the first movement. The clarinet performs technical runs playing from all ranges. It returns back to the beginning theme and then subsides.

Third Movement

The shortest of all four, the movement begins sweetly being one of the composition's few uplifting passages. In measure twenty-three, the clarinet and violin play as if they were talking in a conversation. It modulates back from its heart-warming D major into the darker B minor. This section is highly influenced by the first part and even ends the same except being in a 2/4 meter.

Fourth Movement

This movement is titled "With Motion" and contains a theme and five variations as do the final movements of Mozart's Clarinet Quintet and Brahms's Clarinet Sonata No. 2. Tempo varies according to the musician. Another sweet melody which resembles the second movement is in this part and is in the same B major key. Later, it brings back the theme from the Allegro and ends with a loud chord which eventually fades away.

External links

, originally published in Woodwind Magazine 1, No. 5 (March, 1949)
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