Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet (1790) is the kind of work that can evoke memories of where you were the first time you encountered it. It is one of his latest pieces–from the period when, as one of my friends put it, “Mozart was no longer a prodigy, nor even a mere genius; he was divine.” I first played the piece as a student at Juilliard in a hastily called reading session with friends for the purpose of being coached by a visiting dignitary. In preparation for last January’s concert entitled Exiled to Hollywood: Outcast Artists in Southern California, I was reminded of that dignitary who was one of Hollywood’s leading studio performers, for whom so many film composers created solos, and who was a trailblazer in the days when being the first and only took a back seat to just being great! Cellist, Eleanor Slatkin, mother of conductor Leonard Slatkin and founding member of the Hollywood String Quartet, was also a lovely but fearsome presence with high artistic standards. She taught us to value every moment of this sublime work.
Since then I’ve played it more times than I can remember, but always retain a few distinct impressions of what makes this work great for me. The first is the range of wonderful colors he achieves by integrating and embedding the clarinet into the ensemble as an equal partner. In the slow movement his use of muted strings allows the clarinet to reveal its most intimate secrets, the chalumeau (low) register, which Mozart cradles in the most luscious of harmonies. (Anyone who has heard this piece need not wonder why Brahms chose muted strings for the slow movement of his Clarinet Quintet.)
Movement 1, measures 1 to 41 [haiku url=”https://bostonchambermusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/MozartCl5tetmvt1_1.mp3″ title=”Mozart Clarinet Quintet, Movement 1, measures 1 to 41″]
Movement 2, measures 1 to 20 [haiku url=”https://bostonchambermusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/MozartCl5tetMvt2_1.mp3″ title=”Mozart Clarinet Quintet, Movement 2, measures 1 to 20″]
Second is the extent to which Mozart uses many up-lifting melodic and rhythmic gestures I associate with spiritual ascent through physicality–inspire (inhale), aspire (exhale).
Movement 1, measures 169 to end [haiku url=”https://bostonchambermusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/MozartCl5tetMvt1_4.mp3″ title=”Mozart Clarinet Quintet, Movement 1, measures 169 to end “]
Movement 2, measures 20 to 38 [haiku url=”https://bostonchambermusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/MozartCl5tetMvt2_2.mp3″ title=”Mozart Clarinet Quintet, Movement 2, measures 20 to 38″]
Movement 3, measures 1 to 8 [haiku url=”https://bostonchambermusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/MozartCl5tetMvt3.mp3″ title=”Mozart Clarinet Quintet, Movement 3, measures 1 to 8″]
Movement 4, measures 1 to 26[haiku url=”https://bostonchambermusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/MozartCl5tetMvt4.mp3″ title=”Mozart Clarinet Quintet, Movement 4, measures 1 to 26″]
And third, where Mozart, the supreme dramatist, leaves me breathless every time! If you know the piece, I’ll bet you know the place. It is the first movement theme accompanied by cello pizzicato. Not counting the possibility of the first movement repeat, the theme appears four times. We hear it played first by the first violin and answered by the clarinet. The tune is, frankly, unimpressive. The answer shows promise, even talent. Later in the movement when it returns in the home key it appears much as it did before. However, the answer this last time by the clarinet has caused many colleagues to simply avert their gaze.
Movement 1, measures 42 to 65[haiku url=”https://bostonchambermusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/MozartCl5tetMvt1_2.mp3″ title=”Mozart Clarinet Quintet, Movement 1, measures 42 to 65″]
Movement 1, measures 148 to 169[haiku url=”https://bostonchambermusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/MozartCl5tetMvt1_3.mp3″ title=”Mozart Clarinet Quintet, Movement 1, measures 148 to 169″]
No one but Mozart could have imagined such an answer. And this is only the first movement!
In the last movement Eleanor Slatkin would not let me stop playing until she thought I had confronted every issue raised by the ‘viola’ variation (the only one in a minor key in an otherwise upbeat movement.) Should you allow time before starting it? Should it remain in the same tempo? How pronounced should those grace notes be? Is the ‘sadness’ already in the music, or do you need to add more? If you play slower than the movement tempo, how do your colleagues return to tempo without seeming to rebuke? These and others are enough to keep any violist up at night! BCMS has performed the Quintet in our series in 1985, 1991, 2001, and 2006.
Copland’s Sextet for String Quartet, Clarinet and Piano (1937) has a storied history with BCMS. It is easily one of the most challenging works for any ensemble. Complete with virtuosic hi-jinks, it is actually a lot harder to play than it sounds! Why? Because so much of the piece appears on paper the opposite of how it sounds to an audience. So many of the strongest gestures occur on off beats and in changing meter. It is this combination of shifting rhythm and open intervals that gives Copland that uniquely American flavor that we recognize in Rodeo, El Salon Mexico, Appalachian Spring and other favorites.
https://bostonchambermusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/CoplandSextetMvt1.wmvCopland Sextet, Movement 1: Allegro vivace, beginning
BCMS has played this piece in Boston and Cambridge in 1985, 1995 and on a national tour through California, Colorado and the Midwest that is fun to laugh about now. For our last concert we arrived at a college town two hours before concert by small plane. The place was small enough that the airline thought it ok to send our luggage on the next flight without telling us! That one arrived after concert time. I played the concert in a borrowed over-sized tux, shirt, tie, shoes and socks! I felt like a clown, which seemed somewhat appropriate to the mood of the piece!
Now it can be told, one of my great passions is for the music of the great French pipe organists Widor, Gigout, Vierne, and of course Cesar Franck! Our season series of Piano Quintets on every concert continues with Franck’s Quintet dating from 1879. Everything one has learns to love about his Symphonie in D minor (1886-1889) and the Sonata for Violin and Piano (1886), especially his cyclic form using closely related melodies over several movements and close elegant modulation, is anticipated in this great work.
Movement 1, excerpt [haiku url=”https://bostonchambermusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Franck5tetMvt1.mp3″ title=”Franck Piano Quintet Movement 1, excerpt”]
Movement 2, excerpt [haiku url=”https://bostonchambermusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Franck5tetMvt2.mp3″ title=”Franck Piano Quintet Movement 2, excerpt”]
Movement 3, excerpt [haiku url=”https://bostonchambermusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Franck5tetMvt3_2.mp3″ title=”Franck Piano Quintet Movement 3, excerpt”]
As an organ lover for me the bonus is hearing Franck add the rumble of the low bass stops one gets from great cathedral organs. What better way to leave a concert feeling grounded! BCMS last performed this piece in 1988 and 1995.
Movement 3, excerpt [haiku url=”https://bostonchambermusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Franck5tetMvt3_1.mp3″ title=”Franck Piano Quintet Movement 2, excerpt”]
Enjoy!!
Marcus
