Clarinet catalysts
This weekend I’ll be performing two seminal works of chamber music for clarinet, neither of which would exist if not for their respective composers’ fortuitous late-in-life encounters with virtuosos of the instrument.
Mozart’s Quintet K581 sprang from his unique relationship with clarinet entrepreneur Anton Stadler, which included their mutual participation in the Vienna masonic lodge ‘Zur Neugekrönten Hoffnung’. No doubt Stodla [as the composer dubbed him] was also a tremendous player – of one performance Mozart noted that ‘cries of Bravo were shouted at Stodla from the parterre and even the orchestra.’ Vienna, October 7-8, 1791
Happily for clarinetists everywhere Mozart was not the only major composer to write sublime music for the instrument at career’s end. The quinquagenarian Johannes Brahms had all but given up on large scale composition by the time he encountered the playing of Richard Mühlfeld; within a few years he had composed four masterpieces for him. Almost exactly 100 years after Mozart relayed his friend’s success on the clarinet, Brahms shared his opinion that ‘M. is simply the best master of his instrument.’ Ischl, July 25, 1891
And no reason to confine ourselves solely to musicological commentary with these two clarinet heroes – the sartorialist in me especially enjoys Stadler’s mini-fro and Mühlfeld’s lightning bolt fade!
