Klarinet Archive - Posting 000567.txt from 1996/01

From: DR VINCENT P DELUISE <VdeLuise@-----.COM>
Subj: Mozart's birthday take 2
Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 22:47:24 -0500

To:
Subject: Mozarrt's birthday

Hi all!
With all the technical discussion we have had on 297b, cork grease
etc, we must come back to basics.
Tomorrow, January 27th, 1996 is Mozart's 240th birthday. Of all the
composers, Weber,
Mendelssohn,Copeland, Nielsen, Reicha, Reger, Brahms, Corigliano,
Bernstein, Schumann, Schubert,
etc. none was more the apotheosis for the instrument as a composer
than Mozart.
The K498 trio, the K581 quintet, the K622 concerto the K580
attributed quintet torsos (torsi), the masonic music, the basset
clarinet and voices duets, the obbligato clarinet part in Clemenza di
Tito (Sextus' and Vitellia's arias), the Harmoniemusik, the great
Wind-piano Quintet in Eb K 452,underscore the importance the
clarinet had to Mozart. From his friendship with Anton and Johann
Stadler inVienna, Mozart understood intimately, through their playing
and his own genius, the clarinet's nuances and possibilities.

The poignancy of Mozart's music for clarine has oft been discussed,
but it is as real as Brahms'. Both met the instrument late in life.
For both, the clarinet was the instrument of the valedictory, their
penultimate expressions of love of life and music. As Alec Hyatt King
said "The adagio in the clarinet concerto, (in D), is music of utter
simplicity, which sems to reflect the timeless and beatific visison
of a mind at peace with itself." Robbins Landon spoke of the
paradoxical nature of theallegro movements flanking the great adagio
of the clarinet concerto with the apt "The heart dances, but not for
joy."
Thank you and Happy Birthday Johannes Wolfgangus Crisostomus
Theophilus Gottlieb Mozart (Amadeus was a late in life, ephemeral
sobriquet, actually Aamade). We clarinetists love you. Bravo!

All the best

Vincent deLuise, MD