Mozart Clarinet Quintet
Part of: Chamber Music Series
February 5—10, 2019
Merkin Hall • The Morgan Library & Museum • Brooklyn Museum
A rarely-performed arrangement of Mozart’s only surviving Sinfonia Concertante for string sextet paired with Mozart’s beloved Clarinet Quintet A Major
Read the program notes before the concert.
Learn more about the artists and discover more about the works on this program before joining us for one of three concerts this February!
At A Glance
During his lifetime, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was known for his prodigious talents as a musician and composer as well as his flamboyant, often irreverent personality. Over two centuries after his sudden death, Mozart’s reputation endures both through his compositions and the lore and apocryphal tales that give color to the personal life of one of classical music’s greatest and most influential composers. The two works on today’s program mirror Mozart’s singular personality through the playful and virtuosic solo viola in the Grande Sestetto Concertante for String Sextet (an unattributed arrangement of his Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola, and Orchestra in E-flat Major, K. 364), and the technical marvels and melting lyricism of the Clarinet Quintet in A Major, which Mozart composed as a showpiece for his friend, the clarinetist Anton Stadler.
Did You Know?
Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet in A Major, K. 581, his Clarinet Concerto, and the brilliant clarinet obbligato in arias from La clemenza di Tito were all written to be played on the basset clarinet by Anton Stadler. Today, these works are typically performed on a modern B-flat clarinet.
Click here to read more about Anton Stadler and the Basset Clarinet.
Meet The Artists
