Our Summer BAL 62: Mozart Clarinet Quintet K581

[CallMePaul]

Although the Clarinet concerto was reviewed earlier this year in BAL, I was surprised to see that there has not (in recent years anyway) been a comparative review of the Quintet. It is my favourite piece of Mozart chamber music, if not of his entire output. There is a wide range of recordings, using both the standard and basset clarinets.

I have 3 recordings on CD: the wonderful historic recording by Alfred Boskovsky with members of the 1954 vintage Vienna Octet (including brother Willi on 1st violin), Peter Schmidl with members of the 1995 vintage Vienna Octet, and Wolfgang Meyer with the Quatuor Mosaiques. Boskovsky obviously plays a modern Baermann-Oeler system clarinet in A, Schmidl a modern clarinet (I presume also Baermann-Oeler system) with an extension to provide the low notes of the basset clarinet, and Meyer a reconstruction of a basset clarinet. I listen to all three as the mood takes me and would not like to be pressed to give a preference.

I think I am right in saying that Schmidl is a Boskovsky pupil. Both were principal clarinettists in the Vienna Phil and the tradition has been that principal wind players in that orchestra are pupils of their predecessors.

I would like to hear what other forum members think about this marvellous piece and of performance styles and the instruments used, particularly by the clarinettists.

[Petrushka]

A delightful work though I only have Jack Brymer and the Allegri Quartet. Thanks for the pointer to Boskovsky, I'll search that one out.

[verismissimo]

I too have Boskovsky and his Viennese and Brymer with the Allegris, both from the 1960s, plus a much more recent recording - Matthew Hunt as part of Ensemble 360.

What I don't have is anything faintly HIPP. What do boarders recommend in that department?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I have Brymer too. I'm afraid I find his vibrato-style very off-putting. Yes, I know he's considered to be one of the finest clarinettist of the 20th century, but not for me.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The Boskovsky recording was the one from which I "learnt" the work, back in the mid-'70s (on a DECCA Ace of Clubs/?Diamonds? (Edit: No: Eclipse!) LP borrowed from the local library) - I'd love to hear it again. Currently I have the Talich Quartet with Bohuslav Zahradnik - a fine artist on this recording, but whom I haven't otherwise knowingly encountered - and (in the Mozart 250 box) the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, and Anthony Pay (playing Basset Horn) with a String Quartet from the Academy of Ancient Music - which is a splendid version on HI instruments, verism!

Marvellous piece - one I've loved for forty-odd years, and never get tired of.

[Richard Tarleton]

Just one version here - Thea King on basset clarinet, Gabrieli quartet, paired with Concerto, ECO/King. Likewise - heavenly work

[CallMePaul]

What I don't have is anything faintly HIPP. What do boarders recommend in that department?

Wolfgang Meyer plays a basset clarinet "copy from Rudolf Tutz, Innsbruck". The Quatuor Mosaiques play a on instruments with gut strings and period bows or modern copies. Anna Mitterer's viola is described in the CD booklet as a 1986 copy of an Amati, the other members all play 17th or 18th century instruments. the quintet is coupled with the Kegelstatt trio, where Meyer and Mitterer are joined by Patrick Cohen on a 1790 Anton Walter fortepiano.

According to Colin Lawson's excellent monograph on the Mozart concerto, there are over a dozen basset clarinets known to exist in museums and other collections. As many more must have been lost or destroyed over time, it is surprising that so few works exist for the instrument. Apart from the Mozart quintet and concerto, there are obbligato parts for the instrument in arias fromLa Clemenza di Titoand, I gather from comments on the forum when the Clarinet concerto was featured in BAL earlier in the year, a handful of pieces by Anton Stadler and apparently nothing else.

Last year I heard a recital at Manchester University in which an arrangement of the quintet for basset clarinet and fortepiano was played. It was surprisingly effective but I am not aware of any recordings of this version. As I am unsure where I put the programme for this recital when I had to tidy my spare room in the spring, I cannot remember the names of the performers. I think (without the notes to hand) that it dates from the first few years of the 19th century. Stadler died in 1807 but I cannot say for sure that the basset clarinet died with him. Lawson seems to suggest that its unwieldy size and appearance meant that it did not catch on.

[Tony Halstead]

Just one version here - Thea King on basset clarinet, Gabrieli quartet, paired with Concerto, ECO/King. Likewise - heavenly work

With the ECO and the Gabrieli quartet, that must surely be a 'modern instrument' version?

[Tony Halstead]

The Boskovsky recording was the one from which I "learnt" the work, back in the mid-'70s (on a DECCA Ace of Clubs/?Diamonds? (Edit: No: Eclipse!) LP borrowed from the local library) - I'd love to hear it again. Currently I have the Talich Quartet with Bohuslav Zahradnik - a fine artist on this recording, but whom I haven't otherwise knowingly encountered - and (in the Mozart 250 box) the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, and Anthony Pay (playing Basset Horn) with a String Quartet from the Academy of Ancient Music - which is a splendid version on HI instruments, verism!

Marvellous piece - one I've loved for forty-odd years, and never get tired of.

Antony ( no 'h') Pay didn't play a 'basset horn' on that superb recording, but a basset clarinet. You can read about this instrument elsewhere on this board, but it was essentially a 'normal' clarinet with a compass that was extended in its low register so that it could play, as its lowest note, the 'A' an ocatve and a minor 3rd below middle C.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Antony ( no 'h') Pay didn't play a 'basset horn' on that superb recording, but a basset clarinet.

<dang>! Of course - on both counts. (And I was so careful not to write "Basset Hound" ... )

[richardfinegold]

Antony ( no 'h') Pay didn't play a 'basset horn' on that superb recording, but a basset clarinet. You can read about this instrument elsewhere on this board, but it was essentially a 'normal' clarinet with a compass that was extended in its low register so that it could play, as its lowest note, the 'A' an ocatve and a minor 3rd below middle C.

That’s been one of my most frequently played CDs over the past 25 years or so. Also has delightful versions of the Horn Quintet and the Oboe Quartet.
My first encounter was a recording from the Marlboro Festival, a 2 lp set that also had the Trout Quintet and the first of the Brahms String Sextets. It was one of my first Chamber Music discs and a very seminal moment for me. I think the Clarinettist was Harold Wright, but memory is failing me here. Anyway, when I heard the Pay version, the sound captivated me .

[jayne lee wilson]

<dang>! Of course - on both counts. (And I was so careful not to write "Basset Hound" ... )

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=X7huBgAAQBAJ&pg=PT164&lpg=PT164&dq=two+basset+hounds+poem&source=bl&ots=5XtqG3qlhf&sig=4wl1ZmRciBEzJJLdH4m6Yke1ap0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwje64KjzMDcAhXBesAKHYuGCT4Q6AEwFXoECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=two%20basset%20hounds%20poem&f=false

[verismissimo]

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...20poem&f=false

Deep joy, thanks jlw (and ferney).

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...20poem&f=false

... not quite:

[Richard Tarleton]

With the ECO and the Gabrieli quartet, that must surely be a 'modern instrument' version?

Erm.... I suppose so. It's a 1985 recording. The sleeve notes say:

The present record is the first pairing of both Quintet and Concerto in which the solo part is played on a basset clarinet. For the Concerto, Thea King has followed the restoration of the basset clarinet version by the distinguished English clarinettist Alan Hacker, modifying it in several passages. For the Quiintet, she has adopted most of the suggestions given in the foreward to the Bärenreiter score for restoring the basset clarinet text. Her instrument is one recently made by Selmer of Paris, and now commercially available.