[See the opening paragraph as well as "Still to come" notes
and, now, updates from both Monday and Tuesday]
In this unusual socially distanced configuration, with the clarinetist's back to the string players, Mozart's Clarinet Quintet was performed yesterday in the live-streamed Berlin Phil Series program "An Evening in Vienna" by Wenzel Fuchs, clarinet; Daishin Kashimoto and Romano Tommasini, violins; Naoko Shimizu, viola; and Ludwig Quandt, cello.
NO, THIS ISN'T THE MOZART CLARINET QUINTET
BUT THE OTHER FEATURED WORK YESTERDAY:
i. Allegro con brio
ii. Adagio
iii. Theme with variations ("Pria ch'io l'impegno"): Allegretto
Of the three recordings sampled above, one is American, one British, and one Czech -- think you can tell which is which? (All will be revealed eventually.)
MONDAY UPDATE: Um, hold on a sec! Obviously the continuation of this proto-post has been taking way longer than anticipated (see note below), but while playing with the new audio clips, I was waylaid by one you really ought to hear, like now. (For sure, we'll be talking about it eventually.)
It's the finale, Allegretto con variazioni, of the Mozart Clarinet Quintet:
Nash Ensemble: Michael Collins, clarinet; Marcia Crayford and David Ogden, violins; Roger Chase, viola; Christopher van Kampen, cello. CRD, recorded July 1-2, 1986
by Ken
For today we're taking a break from Mahler (while I ruminate on how to proceed with Mahler 4 and the world of Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn songs), in the form of a happy lookback at yesterday's live-streamed Berlin Phil Series program "An Evening in Vienna," featuring both of the orchestra's principal clarinetists, Wenzel Fuchs and Andreas Ottensamer, who happen both -- as I learned from the Digital Concert Hall's promotional note -- to be Austrian!
This "Evening in Vienna" was not, as the title led me to expect, a toe-tapping program of waltzes, polkas, and such by the Vienna Strausses and kindredly Viennese composing spirits, as you can tell from the above screen grab from the opening work: Mozart's sublime (a word I don't throw around casually) Clarinet Quintet. Which is one reason I decided to create this blog interlude -- I couldn't remember whether we've ever heard the Mozart Clarinet Quintet here at Sunday Classics. I couldn't remember a post that included it, but I've learned not to trust memory for, well, all sorts of things, but certainly not each and every blogpost past. As best I can tell, though, looking in the SC audio archive, we haven't. I guess I never found what seemed a fit peg on which to hang it.
This omission ends today. We've got a lot of music to cover today, including a more leisurely stroll through the Clarinet Quintet, but let's jump in and plug this particular hole right now.
MOZART: Clarinet Quintet in A Major, K. 581
i. Allegro (at 0:02)
ii. Larghetto (at 8:41)
iii. Menuetto (at 14:59)
iv. Allegretto con variazioni (at 21:12)
Peter Simenauer, clarinet; Pascal Quartet (Jacques Dumont and Maurice Crut, violins; Léon Pascal, viola; Robert Salles, cello). Musical Masterpiece Society, recorded c1953 (digital transfer by F. Reeder)
MONDAY UPDATE ABOUT THE CONTINUATION OF THIS
PROTO-POST'S TAKING WAY LONGER THAN ANTICIPATED
