Klarinet Archive - Posting 001250.txt from 2000/05

From: "Michael Bryant" <michael@-----.uk>
Subj: [kl] Mozart Quintet
Date: Mon, 29 May 2000 14:48:01 -0400

Not a masterpiece?

MOZART' S CLARINET QUINTET
A record review by William McNaught ( 1883-1953) for some years Editor of
The Musical Times, in which publication this article appeared in August
1945.

Ready as I am to be put down as a Mozart addict, I cannot join in the chorus
of praise that echoes round this work. An example resounds from the
editorial chapter by Rudolf Gerber, in the Eulenberg Edition. The writer
refers to the 'unparalleled melodiousness' and 'transcendent beauty and
sublimity' of the quintet. 'The senses and the soul have entered a synthesis
which is sensed' (he sonorously sibilates) 'by the listener in the noble and
tranquil I curves of the development as well as in the individual thematic
inventions.' Moreover 'The soulful sensuousness of the first movement swells
into a supernatural chant' etc. (Please excuse this sacrifice of space in a
season of scarcity). In short, he considers it a good work. Shall we have a
look at it?

The first movement is everything that perfection could be as far as the
double bar. Then something flies out of the window. The development section
is surely one of the driest that Mozart wrote in any important work - and
after such an opening! First the chief tune, originally in A is played in C,
the modulation being beautifully done. Then the strings take up the
clarinet's first entry, an arpeggio figure, and relentlessly plug it from
key to key in the dullest fashion for thirteen two-bar phrases. Presently
the clarinet says, 'well, if that's all you can think of, I may as well be
in it ; so it hops up and down the ladder six times. And that's the
development section; you would have to look a long way to find another with
so little Mozart in it. The passage comes to rest on the dominant of A,
ready for the lead into the first subject. This is where we expect Mozart to
be at his cleverest and wittiest. Instead of which he just does nothing
about it.

The recapitulation shows that unstrained and natural variation on the first
statement which we expect of Mozart's craftsmanship, and there is a lovely
bit of coda. Altogether a high-grade Mozartian movement but for that large
blot in the middle. The Larghetto has a tune twenty bars long: isn't it
rather ordinary, and does the movement rise from the plane of smooth,
elegant Mozartian commonplace? Have a look at the slow movements in the new
edition of the string quartets and judge whether the Larghetto is not
eclipsed by all of them. Try also the Minuets, and see whether the one in
the Clarinet Quintet is in the same street. The finale Variations: Mozart
seldom put down a more trivial tune; and listen to the first side (Columbia
DX 1187-90) and tell me where in Mozart's hundred best works you will hear
such tonic-and-dominant, and so much repetition (apart from the repetitions
dutifully made by the players). Many of Mozart's variation movements are not
repetitions in effect; this one is very much so.

In sum - the sum, that is, of one personal opinion - the quintet is grade A
in the essential parts of the first movement, grade B elsewhere, perhaps
grade C in some of the finale. (These grades are entirely within the field
of Mozart's music; if one finds abundant virtues in the finale, as one must,
it is because Mozart's grade C covers them). The quintet is, of course,
beautifully written for the partnership of strings and clarinet. There are
no off-days for Mozart the stylist. But if the music of the work is to
employ our superlatives, what language can we use for the string quartets,
the best-known string quintets, the oboe quartet, the divertimento for
string trio and other works of like quality and inspiration? The quintet is
played beautifully in every way by Reginald Kell and the Philharmonia
Quartet (Columbia DX 1187-1190).

MB
Michael Bryant, Michael@-----.uk
Tel (messages 24hrs) & Fax by request
+44 (0) 20 8390 3236
http://www.bryant14.demon.co.uk
Rosewood Publications url:
http://freespace.virgin.net/s.westmeath

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