Clarinet Quintet in A Major, K. 581

Composer: MOZART, Wolfgang Amadeus
  • Mozart composed this piece in Vienna, September 1789.1
  • Mozart probably composed this piece for Anton Stadler, a clarinetist and Mozart’s fellow Freemason.2
  • Stadler played a type of soprano clarinet called a basset clarinet (in fact, he may have invented the instrument),3 which has an unusual low extension of a major 3rd. Mozart took advantage of this extended range when composing for Stadler.4
  • This work is sometimes known as the Stadler Quintet.5

Sources

  1. Cliff Eisen, and Stanley Sadie, “Mozart, (Johann Chrysostom) Wolfgang Amadeus,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed November 19, 2019,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-6002278233. 
  2. Betsy Schwarm, “Clarinet Quintet in A Major, K 581,” Encyclopædia Brittanica (March 15, 2016), accessed December 3, 2019, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Clarinet-Quintet-in-A-Major-K-581. 
  3. Nicholas Shackleton, “Basset clarinet,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed December 3, 2019,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000040001. 
  4. Eisen and Sadie, “Mozart, (Johann Chrysostom) Wolfgang Amadeus,” Grove Music Online.
  5. Schwarm, “Clarinet Quintet in A Major, K 581,” Encyclopædia Brittanica.

Cut IDs

13676, 19589