Quintet for Clarinet and Strings by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Essay Example

The Quintet for Clarinet and Strings (K 581) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) was written in 1789. At this time Mozart was nearing the end of his life and living with his family in Vienna. He knew a lot of the local musicians and was friendly with Anton Stadler (1753-1812), who specialized as a clarinet soloist, which was unusual at the time because this instrument was still relatively new. The work is a piece of chamber music and its style is a classical string quartet with the addition of a clarinet soloist.

Mozart seems to have developed an increasing interest in clarinet pieces because he went on to write a longer Clarinet Concerto in A Major (K 622) two years later. Like most classical pieces, there is a clear development in a straight line from start to finish, with repetition here and there which gives it a regular structure. Mozart uses chromatic harmonies but they are not allowed to dominate. One of the most noticeable features of the orchestration is how the clarinet and the other instruments alternate as if they are playing with each other.

A good example of this is the second movement which starts with the clarinet and cello, goes on to use clarinet and violin, and carries on with these changes so that the clarinet pops in and out of the music. It is not just a main clarinet with strings accompanying it. All of the instruments take over the melody and then give it back to the clarinet. According to Wold and others (p. 233), Mozart is “the most nearly perfect musical creator in the history of Western music” and this quintet is one of his most popular and most perfect compositions and so it is unlikely that it will ever be forgotten.