Clarinet Concerto, K. 622

The strings play the first theme, in A major. The winds soon join, and Mozart sets parts of the tune in canon. The orchestra plays its own exposition before the clarinet’s first independent solo.

The clarinet takes up the opening melody over soft strings. It soon extends the tune with new phrases and runs further than the orchestra’s version does. The wind section rests at the clarinet’s entry.

A surviving sketch shows that Mozart first planned the concerto for a basset horn in G. He soon changed to the new basset clarinet in A, which reached the octave below middle C. Stadler played it with great skill.

Mozart wrote the concerto for Anton Stadler and his extended-range clarinet. The instrument’s extra low notes let the solo part descend below the ordinary clarinet’s compass before it climbs back into the upper register.

Stadler was a fellow Freemason and a habitual borrower. Mozart’s widow and sister-in-law later said that he never repaid what he borrowed, and that he owed Mozart some 500 florins when Mozart died.

Later in the solo exposition the clarinet plays quick broken chords beneath the orchestra’s phrases. Elsewhere in the movement Mozart gives the soloist the melody, or answering phrases.

After the orchestra closes in E major, the clarinet begins the development with a phrase heard earlier in the movement. The harmony then modulates through several keys. In these exchanges the soloist uses both the low and the high ends of its range.

Stadler said that the portmanteau holding Mozart’s manuscripts was stolen in Germany; the widow was told it had been pawned there for 73 ducats. The first edition moved the low passages up an octave for an ordinary clarinet without marking which. Basset clarinettists reconstruct them by educated guesses.

In December 1987 William McColl played the concerto on a basset clarinet he had built himself. The University of Washington orchestra accompanied him under Abraham Kaplan.

The clarinet plays the opening melody again in A major, with quiet strings around it and first violins replying to the solo line. Mozart leaves the soloist room to elaborate the phrases.

The concerto was probably first heard in Prague on 16 October 1791, less than two months before Mozart died at thirty-five. It was the last major instrumental work he completed.

Strings and winds take over the closing phrases in A major. Mozart wrote no large, separate cadenza for this movement. The final orchestral cadence follows the clarinet’s last flourish.

The clarinet enters over moving violins and held viola notes, with the cellos playing a light bass. The double basses and orchestral winds rest. The melody rises and falls, and each phrase is separated by rests.

The orchestra follows the solo phrase in D. Flutes, bassoons and horns join the strings, with the double basses beneath them. The violins take the melody, and in the printed score the clarinet doubles their line.

In this December 1987 performance William McColl played an instrument he had built himself. The basset clarinet extends the low range of the ordinary clarinet and gives Mozart’s soloist more notes below the stave.

The middle section begins in A major. The clarinet decorates its line with quick runs and wider leaps, and the strings accompany softly. Long notes alternate with short runs.

On 7 October 1791, while finishing the concerto, Mozart wrote to Constanze in Baden after another full house for The Magic Flute. He wrote that what pleased him most was its “silent applause”, the audience’s absorbed attention during the music.

A pause on the dominant prepares the return of the D major melody. The clarinet resumes over the softly moving strings, and the double basses rest again. Mozart shortens the return, and the soloist then plays a more ornate closing passage.

The clarinet plays ornamental figures and a trill above quiet strings. The melody stays close to D major. Winds and horns return for the closing cadence and accompany the soloist’s last notes.

The solo clarinet plays a skipping tune in six-eight above violins and violas. Cellos, double basses and the orchestral winds rest until the tutti, where they enter.

On 7 October 1791 in Vienna, Mozart had coffee brought in and smoked a pipe of tobacco. He told Constanze, who was in Baden, about this in a letter and went on to describe his work that day. “Then I orchestrated almost the whole of Stadler’s rondo.”

The first episode gives the clarinet a more flowing melody and moves towards E major. Short string phrases accompany the longer solo lines.

The A major refrain returns briefly, in its original rhythm. The orchestra then takes over in a tutti that leads away from it, before the minor-key episode.

The central episode moves to F♯ minor. The clarinet plays wide leaps and running figures over quiet strings, with brief replies from the wind, and uses both its high and low registers.

Mozart brings back the melody of the earlier episode before the full refrain returns. The clarinet plays its longer-phrased tune again. The opening theme of the refrain comes back after it.

The clarinet plays the full refrain in A major, accompanied by the upper strings. The orchestral winds rest. The soloist has further runs before the full orchestra enters for the closing phrases.

Mozart’s manuscript of the completed concerto is lost. Early printed editions adapted the solo for an ordinary clarinet and moved its lowest phrases upwards. Modern basset-clarinet versions restore the deeper compass for which Mozart wrote, though the details of individual passages differ between editions.

Flutes, bassoons and horns join the strings for the closing tutti. After the clarinet’s last trill, the orchestra plays the cadence in A major.