Clarinet Concerto in A Major

The Clarinet Concerto, completed less than two months before Mozart’s death, was written specially for the Austrian virtuoso Anton Stadler. Its first performance probably took place in Prague in October 1791, although no documentation has survived to fully confirm this. What is known, however, is that Mozart specifically composed the work for the basset clarinet. The melodic range of this instrument, invented during the 1770s, incorporated notes in a lower register than could be played on the standard clarinet. Yet despite Stadler’s enthusiastic advocacy, the basset clarinet never caught on, and the first publication of Mozart’s score in the early years of the 19th century assigned the solo part to the clarinet, with some of the lower notes of the original transposed into a higher range. Such details, although interesting in themselves, have little bearing on the musical riches of the Clarinet Concerto. The solo part illustrates how effectively Mozart writes for the instrument and manages to explore all of its expressive possibilities. In the opening “Allegro”, for example, passages of brilliant fast-moving notes move seamlessly to moments of lyrical introspection, a mood that is also wonderfully captured in the long-breathed quasi-operatic melody of the central “Adagio”. The outer sections of the “Rondo Finale” are jaunty and exhilarating, but darker resonances in the middle of the movement suggest that a feeling of melancholy is never that far from the surface.