Author: Simon Aldrich
Date: 2019-05-24 05:49
To add to Liquorice's list of Mozart's pieces for basset clarinet, the extant autograph score fragment of his quintet in Bb for clarinet and strings K. 516c (or Anh. 91) is written for the Bb basset instrument.
I suspect those who think they do not like the basset clarinet have never played the Mozart Concerto on one. On the basset clarinet, the distinct and separate characters in the concerto are in plainer view.
In his critique of Carey Bell's Mozart Concerto performance, a critic touches on those characters.
(http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Music-review-Bell-exhibits-clarinet-mastery-3287520.php)
"That in turn freed him to people the concerto with a handful of distinctive characters. In the first movement, when Mozart sets up dialogues between the upper and lower registers of the clarinet, Bell underscored the point by giving each voice a separate identity.
It wasn't just a matter of range and dynamics but of color, shape and intonation as well - all conjuring up the image of two people in conversation. And once the conversation was over, Bell pulled out a third voice, a more straightforward one that unmistakably represented the omniscient narrator."
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