Our Summer BAL 62: Mozart Clarinet Quintet K581

[aeolium]

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

It's a terrific recording, RT. I grew up on the conventional clarinet versions, including Boskovsky/Vienna Octet, de Peyer/Melos Ensemble and Brymer/Allegri which were all very good, but once I heard the Thea King/Gabrieli recording with the wonderful sound of the basset clarinet and the extended lower notes, I never wanted to revisit those earlier recordings or indeed to hear the work on a conventional clarinet again. There are now quite a few excellent recordings which use the basset clarinet, e.g. Sabine Meyer/Carmina Quartet, but the work comes round quite often in concerts and on R3 so I now prefer to look out for those rather than listen to a recording.

[verismissimo]

… a much more recent recording - Matthew Hunt as part of Ensemble 360.

Hunt is excellent - with basset clarinet - but the strings of Ensemble 360 sound as though wrapped in cotton wool. Presumably that's what they wanted.

I've ordered Pay with AAM …

[verismissimo]

I've ordered Pay with AAM …

Pay and the AAM chamber ensemble (1987) are a revelation. Such clarity and musical shapeliness. Monica Huggett superb, as usual.

I've also invested in Pay/AAM in the concerto - yet to audition.

[Bryn]

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.

I prefer 'the real thing', Alan Hacker himself, with the Salomon Quartet. You also get Duncan Druce's completions of a couple of quintets, K516c and K580b:



That said, I am currently reather enjoying Benny Goodman's recording with the Budapest Quartet, recorded just two days short of a decade before I was born.

[Pulcinella]

The version I have is from 1982, remastered 1991: Andrew Marriner and the Chilingirian Quartet on CfP (coupled with the Oboe quartet).
Probably well enough thought of, or I wouldn't have bought it.
A very early recording for Andrew Marriner as soloist, surely.

[MickyD]

I see that Colin Lawson has also done an HIP version with the Revolutionary Drawing Room, with some interesting fillers. I've never heard it, would make an interesting comparison with the excellent Pay/AAM version as mentioned above.