44. Divine Wolfgang

In Mozart’s time, critics regarded solo concertos as empty displays of virtuosity. They maliciously concluded that they were “nothing more than an exercise for composers and performers” (Johann Georg Sulzer and Johann Philipp Kirnberger), “a space designed specifically to demonstrate virtuosity, and only one in a hundred can boast of possessing any artistic value” (Johann Karl Friedrich Triest). This negative view changed in the early 19th century, when Heinrich Christoph Koch compared a good concerto to an ancient tragedy - with the soloist as the actor and the orchestra as the chorus. Mozart took the position that his concertos would please both amateurs and professionals alike: everyone would find something to enjoy in them. He wrote his piano and violin concertos with his own performances in mind, and those for other instruments – for virtuoso friends. The Clarinet Concerto in A major was composed for Anton Stadler, who was not only one of the first two clarinetists hired by the court orchestra in Vienna but also introduced innovations in the construction of this instrument, which was only just gaining popularity. The clarinet was still so new that it wasn’t even included in the instrumentation of most symphonies. Mozart used it in the Paris Symphony (the French were the first to take a liking to this instrument) and in the Symphony in E-flat major, K. 543, but in his last symphony – the Symphony in C major, known as the Jupiter – he once again omitted it. He introduced innovations elsewhere in this piece – in its form, masterfully combining classical patterns with a fugue in the finale, whose deceptively simple first theme he may have drawn from a counterpoint textbook.

– Dominika Micał (pisanezesluchu.pl)