252 Mozart: Stadler Quintet, Clarinet Concerto, Arias K. 523 & 524

Description

The clarinet player uses his instrument as billard cue. This little provocation on the cover indicates what is going on. Its common knowledge that Mozart composed these pieces not long before his death. But for Dirk Altmann (and booklet author Katharina Eickhoff) they are not the creations of an angel on the way to heaven but where written in a very earthly environment a part of which was playing billard with his friend and clarinet player Anton Stadler. What happens when the clarinet concerto is played exempt of romantic, nearly religious enhancement? We hear the inspirations of a joyful genius. Surely you want to know more…

“(…) the performers achieve wonderful things: a great deal of liveliness, agility and clarity in the chamber music – and in the concerto a singing of the solo instrument that enriches the instrumental dialogue with all the compartments, positions and peculiarities of the human voice. That the music also often (and especially in the Allegretto of the quintet) seems to giggle loudly and mischievously is another quality of this recommendable production. (…)” Stuttgarter Nachrichten

Audiosample (mp3, stereo)