Philharmonic chamber music: The fascination of the clarinet

The clarinet is also associated with Mozart because he established the then still relatively young instrument in the orchestra and – thanks to Stadler – composed two outstanding works of their kind, the Clarinet Quintet and Clarinet Concerto. The basic mood of the quintet is characterised by a calmness and maturity of expression at moderate tempi, which the music always returns to even after digressions into melancholy or light-heartedness. The descending string line with which the work begins also serves as the motivic nucleus of the scherzo and finale. In the slow movement, which is closely related to the second movement of the later Clarinet Concerto, the solo instrument sings a sustained aria over muted strings. In the variations of the finale, each instrument has the opportunity to emerge as a soloist. Before the lively finale, Mozart created an adagio variation with an almost meditative mood.

Like Mozart through Stadler, Wolfgang Rihm became aware of the technical possibilities and expressive power of the clarinet through a virtuoso: he wrote almost 20 works for his former composition student and clarinet virtuoso Jörg Widmann, starting with Musik für Klarinette und Orchester, published in 1999. Widmann recently recalled in an interview how much Rihm had encouraged his students to be stubborn. The technically demanding Vier Studien zu einem Klarinettenquintett, which Widmann and the Minguet Quartet premiered in 2003, unfold an emotional spectrum that ranges from lyricism and delicacy to radical expressivity.

Harry Ward

Tobias Reifland

Angelo de Leo

Andraž Golob

Solène Kermarrec

Andraž Golob

Harry Ward

Angelo de Leo

Tobias Reifland

Solène Kermarrec