Mozart's Clarinet Quintet in A major: The Gold Standard

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I have long admired the music of Mozart. In fact, I wrote as much when I observed the 30th anniversary of the premiere of the movie "Amadeus" a couple of weeks ago.

But his "Clarinet Quintet in A major," which he finished writing 225 years ago today, has always been special to me. I don't really know why except to say, in that somewhat vague way, that it speaks to me. That isn't really an adequate answer, I suppose, but it's the only one I have.

Not everyone knows what a clarinet quintet is so I will briefly explain. A clarinet quintet is an ensemble of a clarinet and a string quartet (two violins, one viola, one cello). Clarinet quintet is also used as a reference to compositions for such a combo.

I am not sure if it is my favorite Mozart composition, but it is certainly one of them. If I ever get into a debate with someone over the greatest Mozart composition (hardly likely but not impossible), his clarinet quintet will be in the conversation.

I love the way the clarinet sets the mood for the piece, and its notes hang in the air for a short time before the other instruments join in. I knew of it before it held a prominent place in the record–shattering series finale of M*A*S*H; I wasn't asked for my input, of course, but I could hardly have picked a better piece to be associated with that episode.

It was a brilliant touch.

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In it, Charles encountered some Chinese soldiers who were, at heart, musicians (and, I suspected, peasants in civilian life), and they surrendered to him with no resistance; in fact, they were insistent about it. Their music offended Charles' patrician sensitivities, particularly when he was trying to listen to a recording of Mozart — and then one of the prisoners began playing that very piece. Charles was inspired to teach all of them to play the Mozart piece, which they eventually did admirably.

In spite of their language barrier, they bonded — through the universal language of music.

Mozart wrote the piece for renowned clarinetist Anton Stadler of Austria. It is said that, in Stadler's hands, a clarinet was "so soft, so delicate in tone that no one who has a heart can resist it."

That's a pretty good description of this piece, actually. For a piece from a composer who was known to be as prodigious as Mozart, it holds a unique place in the extensive library of his work. It is the only clarinet quintet he completed.

Although it was completed about two years before Mozart's death, the clarinet quintet was not his last composition. It wasn't even close. He wrote some of his most admired works in those last two years of his life.

Many of his works have been mimicked by others. In some cases, though, the word mimic really isn't appropriate. Maybe it is better to call such pieces homages. Beethoven, who was Mozart's junior by 15 years, is said to have written several pieces in Mozart's style. I'm sure Beethoven believed that what he was doing was a tribute to Mozart.

But I know of no instance in which a composer mimicked Mozart's clarinet quintet. Perhaps it couldn't be done.

Fact is, not many composers have written clarinet quintets. A few tried after Mozart did it, but I guess it was more than a century later, when Johannes Brahms wrote his clarinet quintet, that composers really began to write them. Brahms' clarinet quintet was good — but, along with being virtually the first of its kind, Mozart's composition really set the standard.

More than two centuries later, it is still the standard.

Chopin's 200th Birthday

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Today is the 200th birthday of one of the masters of romantic music — Frederic Chopin.

If you aren't a student of music, you may hear the phrase "romantic music" and think it is a reference to romantic love, which it is not. Or you may think it is a somewhat nostalgic reference to ideas that were conceived in musical periods that came before, like the classical period that immediately preceded it and included some of the best–known composers in music history (i.e., Mozart and Beethoven). Again, it is not — although it is worth mentioning that Beethoven is often regarded by students of music to be something of a transitional figure from the classical period to the romantic period. After I began to hear that, I started to notice influences from both the classical and the romantic eras in his compositions. It explained a lot about Beethoven's music, that was for sure.

But I digress.

The romantic music movement refers to the composition and theory of mostly the 19th century. And the thing about romantic music that has always appealed to me is the fact that it had more freedom of expression than the music that had come before. If you listen to music by the romantic composers — Chopin, Liszt, even Wagner — you will hear rich melodies and harmonies, more of a songlike quality than you will hear from Mozart or the earlier composers.

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Orchestras continued to play key roles in the romantic period, but some composers, like Chopin, wrote quite a few instrumental pieces as well. Being a pianist, most of Chopin's instrumental compositions tended to be for the piano.

As a child, I remember hearing my parents play recordings of Chopin's music and thinking that it sounded delicate — in the way that the word icicle seemed delicate to me. I've been trying to figure out why I associate Chopin's music with icicles. Maybe there is a memory buried inside my head of the first time I heard a recording of Chopin, and that day was in winter. Perhaps there were icicles hanging from the roof outside, and that's how I made that connection.

I guess icicles are sturdier up north than they are in the central Arkansas town where I grew up — at least, they were quite fragile when I was a child. This winter seems to have been making the case that the global climate may, indeed, be changing, so perhaps the icicles in my hometown are made of sterner stuff now, thanks to temperatures that are colder longer than they were in those days, but when I was a child, the icicles that formed on the roof of our house didn't seem to be capable of standing up to a slight breeze. They were spindly things that would shatter if you touched them.

They were beautiful to look at, though. How they sparkled when the rays from the sun hit them just right. But those warming rays were too much for the icicles, and they would start to melt almost immediately. I guess that was the lesson I took from icicles — not that they were a threat to us, but that we were a threat to them.

Maybe that was the quality of icicles that my mind linked to Chopin's etudes and nocturnes. Beautiful to hear, yet fragile at the same time. I don't know if I thought the music, like the icicles, was endangered. But maybe I did. When I was a child, the music that was popular was loud, often raucous. I love those songs now, but when I was a child, I may have seen them as a threat. More people were listening to the modern stuff than to Chopin.

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Well, Chopin's music was, indeed, made of sturdier stuff than I thought. I have noticed that, even today, more than 160 years after his death, his music can transfix an audience like nothing I have ever seen. Take a look at this clip from Vienna more than 20 years ago. Sure, the pianist is Vladimir Horowitz, but watch how everyone in that massive hall is spellbound by a single piano.

There are times when the notes are as delicate as the icicles I described earlier. But the people in the audience seem to be holding their breath so as not to miss a note. There are times when you can hear someone cough and one can only imagine the annoyed looks on the faces of those in the vicinity, so intent they seemed to be on hearing everything.

How extraordinary.

Engelbert Humperdinck is Dead?

Relax.

I'm not talking about the pop singer from the 1960s and 1970s. His real name is Arnold Dorsey, and, at last report, he was still very much alive. He is 73 and still recording — although perhaps not as much as he used to.

But he's the one I think of when I hear the name Engelbert Humperdinck. And, for a long time, I thought it was merely a stage name that he made up. It is a memorable name, after all.

Well, it is a stage name, but Dorsey didn't make it up.

I don't remember when I learned that there was another Engelbert Humperdinck, but at some point, I did. He was a German composer who lived mostly in the 19th century and is remembered primarily for composing the opera "Hänsel und Gretel" in the early 1890s.

Born in 1854, Humperdinck suffered a severe stroke in 1912. He recovered, but his left hand was permanently paralyzed. With his son's help, he completed his final composition six years later. Then, on Sept. 26, 1921, while attending the performance of his son's first operatic production as a director, he suffered a heart attack. The next day, he suffered another heart attack, which proved to be fatal.

An interesting footnote ...

You may be, as my mother was, a fan of the 1987 movie "The Princess Bride." That film was based on a 1973 book by William Goldman.

Anyway, there is a character in the story named Prince Humperdinck. It has been suggested that Engelbert Humperdinck the German composer was the inspiration for that name, but some have said that Goldman was inspired by the Engelbert Humperdinck who is his contemporary.

As far as I know, Goldman never has confirmed which one was the actual inspiration.