Modulating Moods

Mozart counted two of the best clarinet players of the day among his friends:  the brothers Anton and Johann Nepomuk Stadler, both members of the court orchestra in Vienna.  Anton Stadler, who was also a virtuoso soloist, inspired three great works by Mozart:  the so-called Kegelstatt (or “Bowling Alley”) trio, the present quintet and the sublime Clarinet Concerto.

Interestingly, the last two works were not originally written for the clarinet as we know it.  Anton Stadler had devised a special instrument that probably no one else ever played, called the basset clarinet.  This instrument extended the low register of the instrument by another major third.  Yet, because it never really caught on, the published versions of both the quintet and the concerto were adapted to the regular clarinet.

If one tries to describe the Clarinet Quintet, words like “tenderness” and “gentle lyricism” may come to mind, but the beauty of the piece is really beyond words.  From the beginning, the strings set the intimate tone of the work, but when the clarinet enters, the gates of a hitherto unknown magical reality open up before us.  When the second theme, a graceful violin melody, is taken over by the clarinet, the tonality shifts from major to minor, agitated syncopations appear in the accompaniment, and Classicism gives way to Romanticism for a moment.

The second-movement Larghetto begins as an aria for the clarinet and develops into a veritable love duet between the clarinet and the first violin.  The minuet is poised, elegant and well-balanced, with two trios.  The first one is a passionate piece scored for strings only, giving the clarinet a well-deserved respite; the second, a graceful Austrian Ländler dance in which the clarinet resumes its role as the protagonist.  The finale is a set of variations on a beguilingly simple melody.  The variations are mostly virtuosic, except for the third, a melancholy episode in the minor mode where the melody is assigned to the viola.  An introspective Adagio section is inserted as the penultimate event, followed by a joyful conclusion in a faster tempo.

© 2026 Peter Laki

Of the numerous miniatures Stravinsky wrote during and shortly after World War I, these pieces are the only ones to employ neither voice nor piano.  The impetus came from Werner Reinhart, a Swiss businessman who was a major supporter of the arts–and an accomplished amateur clarinetist.  In 1918, he had helped make the performance of Stravinsky’s L’histoire du soldat possible, and the Three Pieces for Clarinet Solo were the composer’s way to say thank you.

They are, as far as can be ascertained, the first works for unaccompanied clarinet ever written.  The lack of harmony was obviously a limitation, but Stravinsky was a master at making a virtue of necessity.  He exploited the clarinet’s sensuous lower register, and made ample use of the rhythmical expansions and contractions known from such works as the earlier Rite of Spring or the later Symphonies of Wind Instruments.  The second piece is the only instance in Stravinsky’s entire oeuvre to dispense with bar lines.  In his classic book on the composer, Eric Walter White describes this movement as being “in an improvisatory vein, with fast-flowing arpeggios and arabesques, framing a slower, quieter, lower-pitched middle section.”  The last piece, like the first, is a study in mixed meters, but this time the tempo is fast, and the action takes place predominantly in the instrument’s shrill upper register.

© 2026 Peter Laki

In the “Dumky” Trio, Dvořák was more strongly and more exclusively influenced by folk music than in any of his other major works.  This folk-music influence, however, did much more than simply provide “local color.”  Rather, it brought forth one of the most profound artistic utterances in Dvořák’s entire output.

In Ukrainian folk music, the name dumka was given to a certain type of song with a nostalgic, elegiac character.  (Dvořák had a long-standing interest in the music of other Slavic nations; the “pan-Slavic” movement, which promoted the unity of all Slavic nationalities, was gaining ground in his native Bohemia.). Yet Dvořák did not use any original dumka melodies.  He preferred to invent his own, as he had first done in a solo piano work as early as 1876.  Dumkas served as slow movements in several of Dvořák’s chamber compositions, the most famous example being the Piano Quintet, Op. 81.

The idea of stringing together six dumkas to form a piano trio was rather unusual, and Dvořák achieved a real tour de force with this most unusual plan.  Each of the six dumkas incorporates a contrast between slower and faster tempos —the former often coming across as sad and the latter as cheerful; the contrasts generally involve changes between the major and minor modes as well.  But there are innumerable shades and nuances between those emotional states.  Each movement is a different personality, or rather, if we consider the fast and slow parts separately as we should, a different pair of personalities.

The first movement juxtaposes a certain majestic pathos with a wild, syncopated dance.  In the second, a melancholy Adagio alternates with a light-hearted melody that gradually takes on a furioso character.  In the third, the slow theme is in the major and the fast one in the minor, not the other way around as before.  The expressive cello melody of No. 4 continues with a playful scherzando.  In No. 5, both the tempo and the key relationships are reversed: a passionate melody in a major key is followed by a dreamy, “quasi-recitative” episode in the minor.  The biggest surprise, however, comes in the last dumka, scored in an unremittingly tragic C minor.  Its slow melody is perhaps the most poignant of all, and the fast theme ends the work with breathtaking dramatic force, without the slightest relief from the accumulated tensions.

© 2026 Peter Laki