Klarinet Archive - Posting 000160.txt from 2006/01

From: Oliver Seely <oseely@-----.edu>
Subj: [kl] The Quarter Millennium Birthday Bash for W.A. Mozart.
Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2006 12:58:52 -0500

I've enjoyed reading about the activities planned by KLARINETISTs for
this event.

Rien nudged me to give you folks a pre-release of the Program Notes
for my modest offering on the
27th. I'm not exactly inviting you to this event, not that I
wouldn't like to welcome every member of
KLARINET, but the rather labyrinthine process of getting a campus map
and a legal parking slot during a
weekday is a bit embarrassing to me. In any case, here is what I have planned:

The Quarter Millennium Birthday Bash for
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Oliver Seely, Department of Chemistry, on Clarinet
and selected members of Ollie's Sili(con) Symphony.
January 27, 2006, Noon - 1pm, NSM B252
California State University Dominguez Hills

Program Notes

Some history

On January 27, 1756 at 8 pm, after a difficult labor leading to the
delivery her seventh child, Anna Marie
Mozart gave birth to a weakly and fragile boy, christened the next
morning Johannes Chrysostomus
Wolfgangus Theophilus. The German translation of Theophilus became
Gottlieb which was later
changed to Amadeus following a trip to Italy. Today we honor
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as, in the
words of Richard Wagner, "music's genius of light and love". Among
the more than six hundred works
he composed in his 35 years with us are some beguiling pieces in
which the clarinet figures prominently.

The birthday offering

The Quintet for Piano and Winds, K.452 and the Trio for Clarinet,
Viola and Piano, K. 498 will be played
today in celebration of the musical enchantment he gave to us during
his short life.

The Quintet for Piano, Oboe, Clarinet, Horn and Bassoon in Eb, K.452,
was finished on March 30, 1784
and was said by Mozart in a letter to his father eleven days later to
be "the best work I have ever
composed." It is fortunate for us that there was much more to
come. Those words were written before
he had composed the K.498 trio, below, the K.581 Clarinet Quintet,
the K.622 Clarinet Concerto and at
least 171 other works more than a few of which would handsomely
compete for the honor.

The Trio for Piano, Clarinet and Viola in Eb, K.498, was composed for
Francisca Jacquin, the daughter
of a friend, who played the clavier. We are told that Wolfgang
played the viola and his friend Anton
Stadler the clarinet for the first rehearsal. As you listen, try to
imagine opening your door to greet the
composer, manuscript in hand, for the first playing of this
exquisitely crafted work of friendship and love.

The musicians

Although Ollie has performed for condescending, forgiving and
captive, if not adoring, audiences since
beginning clarinet lessons more than a half century ago, he has been
playing with his computer friends
for only the last 10 years. He says that there is no substitute for
live players and is eager to switch over
whenever they make infrequent and unexpected appearances but he is
quick to add that the members of
his Sili(con) Symphony never miss a beat nor do they ever have to
stop to replace a broken string or to
change a reed.

Your presence today

Feel free to come and go as you please. A computer accompaniment
certainly leaves more than a little
to be desired, but it was the only way to realize today's
performance. Sit and listen to a movement or
two of these lovely creations and then be on your way. Ollie feels
that one ought not to let Mozart's two
hundred fiftieth birthday pass without some kind of offering as
thanks for the composer's musical gifts to
us. There will be no second chance for any of us to attend or to
perform at the half-millennium
celebration!

Download and listen to more works, which include the clarinet, by
W.A. Mozart at
http://www.csudh.edu/oliver/clarmusi/clarmusi.htm

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