Clarinet Quintet (Mozart)
Encyclopedia
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 (two violin
s, 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 completed clarinet quintet, and is 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.
A fragment of score exists for a second (though possibly written first) clarinet quintet in B-flat, of which a complete exposition survives. It is possible that Mozart completed the movement, as the score continues into the development section on the last surviving page. This fragment is unlikely to be a sketch, as it bears no marks of correction. Nevertheless, the A major quintet is Mozart's sole surviving complete work for clarinet quintet.
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.
:
=110–140).
, 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
arpeggio
s traded between the strings under the closing clarinet phrases.
every few notes. The second trio is a clarinet solo over the strings, whereas in the minuet the roles are distributed more evenly.
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.
. 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 minor third. Both the second movements are in the same key (D major
) and have similar characters, 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.
Along with his Clarinet Concerto
, Mozart's Clarinet Quintet is considered one of Pope Benedict XVI
's favorite works of music.
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...
's Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, K.
Köchel-Verzeichnis
The Köchel-Verzeichnis is a complete, chronological catalogue of compositions by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart which was originally created by Ludwig von Köchel. It is abbreviated K or KV. For example, Mozart's Requiem in D minor was, according to Köchel's counting, the 626th piece Mozart composed....
581, was written in 1789
1789 in music
-Events:*Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart travels to Berlin.*Joseph Haydn meets Maria Anna von Genzinger.*Adalbert Gyrowetz arrives in Paris.*Luigi Cherubini becomes music director for the Théâtre Monsieur.*Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach becomes Kapellmeister at Berlin....
for the clarinetist Anton Stadler
Anton Stadler
Anton Stadler was an Austrian clarinet and basset horn player for whom Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote both his Quintet for Clarinet and Strings and Clarinet Concerto....
. A clarinet quintet
Clarinet quintet
A clarinet quintet is a chamber musical ensemble made up of one clarinet, plus the standard string quartet of two violins, one viola, and one cello. The term is also used to refer to a piece written for this ensemble....
is a work for one 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...
and a string quartet (two violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
s, a viola
Viola
The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
and a cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
). Although originally written for basset clarinet
Basset clarinet
The basset clarinet is a clarinet, similar to the usual soprano clarinet but longer and with additional keys to enable playing several additional lower notes...
, it is almost always played on a clarinet in A or B-flat. It was Mozart's only completed clarinet quintet, and is 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.
A fragment of score exists for a second (though possibly written first) clarinet quintet in B-flat, of which a complete exposition survives. It is possible that Mozart completed the movement, as the score continues into the development section on the last surviving page. This fragment is unlikely to be a sketch, as it bears no marks of correction. Nevertheless, the A major quintet is Mozart's sole surviving complete work for clarinet quintet.
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 movementsMovement (music)
A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession...
:
- Allegro, 4/4
- Larghetto, 3/4 in D majorD majorD major is a major scale based on D, consisting of the pitches D, E, F, G, A, B, and C. Its key signature consists of two sharps. Its relative minor is B minor and its parallel minor is D minor....
- MenuettoMinuetA minuet, also spelled menuet, is a social dance of French origin for two people, usually in 3/4 time. The word was adapted from Italian minuetto and French menuet, and may have been from French menu meaning slender, small, referring to the very small steps, or from the early 17th-century popular...
— TrioTrio (music)Trio is generally used in any of the following ways:* A group of three musicians playing the same or different musical instrument.* The performance of a piece of music by three people.* The contrasting section of a piece in ternary form...
I — Trio II, 3/4 (Trio I in A minorA minorA minor is a minor scale based on A, consisting of the pitches A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. The harmonic minor scale raises the G to G...
) - Allegretto con VariazioniVariation (music)In music, variation is a formal technique where material is repeated in an altered form. The changes may involve harmony, melody, counterpoint, rhythm, timbre, orchestration or any combination of these.-Variation form:...
, 2/2
First movement
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. (Quarter noteQuarter note
A quarter note or crotchet is a note played for one quarter of the duration of a whole note . Often people will say that a crotchet is one beat, however, this is not always correct, as the beat is indicated by the time signature of the music; a quarter note may or may not be the beat...
=110–140).
Second movement
The second movement, in sonata form with a six-bar transition in place of a central development sectionMusical development
In European classical music, musical development is a process by which a musical idea is communicated in the course of a composition. It refers to the transformation and restatement of initial material, and is often contrasted with musical variation, which is a slightly different means to the same...
, opposes a first section which is mostly a long-breathed clarinet melody over muted
Mute (music)
A mute is a device fitted to a musical instrument to alter the sound produced: by affecting the timbre, reducing the volume, or most commonly both.- Musical directions for muting :...
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
Sonata form
Sonata form is a large-scale musical structure used widely since the middle of the 18th century . While it is typically used in the first movement of multi-movement pieces, it is sometimes used in subsequent movements as well—particularly the final movement...
, and then in the last few bars of the movement, more chromatic
Chromatic scale
The chromatic scale is a musical scale with twelve pitches, each a semitone apart. On a modern piano or other equal-tempered instrument, all the half steps are the same size...
than the rest, the scales turn into triplet
Tuplet
In music a tuplet is "any rhythm that involves dividing the beat into a different number of equal subdivisions from that usually permitted by the...
arpeggio
Arpeggio
An arpeggio is a musical technique where notes in a chord are played or sung in sequence, one after the other, rather than ringing out simultaneously...
s traded between the strings under the closing clarinet phrases.
Third movement
The third movement consists of a minuet and, unusually, two trios. The first trio is for the strings alone, with a theme that has a signature acciaccaturaOrnament (music)
In music, ornaments or embellishments are musical flourishes that are not necessary to carry the overall line of the melody , but serve instead to decorate or "ornament" that line. Many ornaments are performed as "fast notes" around a central note...
every few notes. The second trio is a clarinet solo over the strings, whereas in the minuet the roles are distributed more evenly.
Fourth movement
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 ConcertoClarinet Concerto (Mozart)
Mozart's Clarinet concerto in A major, K. 622 was written in 1791 for the clarinetist Anton Stadler.It consists of the usual three movements, in a fast–slow–fast form:# Allegro# Adagio# Rondo: Allegro...
. Both are in the same key of A major
A major
A major is a major scale based on A, with the pitches A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Its key signature has three sharps.Its relative minor is F-sharp minor and its parallel minor is A minor...
and were written for the same soloist, Anton Stadler
Anton Stadler
Anton Stadler was an Austrian clarinet and basset horn player for whom Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote both his Quintet for Clarinet and Strings and Clarinet Concerto....
. 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 minor third. Both the second movements are in the same key (D major
D major
D major is a major scale based on D, consisting of the pitches D, E, F, G, A, B, and C. Its key signature consists of two sharps. Its relative minor is B minor and its parallel minor is D minor....
) and have similar characters, although they have different tempo
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:...
markings. There is a direct quotation of two bars
Bar (music)
In musical notation, a bar is a segment of time defined by a given number of beats of a given duration. Typically, a piece consists of several bars of the same length, and in modern musical notation the number of beats in each bar is specified at the beginning of the score by the top number of a...
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
Kegelstatt Trio
The Kegelstatt Trio , also referred to as the Trio for Clarinet, Viola and Piano in E-flat, is a classical chamber music composition by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.-History:...
, 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.
Along with his Clarinet Concerto
Clarinet Concerto (Mozart)
Mozart's Clarinet concerto in A major, K. 622 was written in 1791 for the clarinetist Anton Stadler.It consists of the usual three movements, in a fast–slow–fast form:# Allegro# Adagio# Rondo: Allegro...
, Mozart's Clarinet Quintet is considered one of Pope Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict XVI
Benedict XVI is the 265th and current Pope, by virtue of his office of Bishop of Rome, the Sovereign of the Vatican City State and the leader of the Catholic Church as well as the other 22 sui iuris Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with the Holy See...
's favorite works of music.