Quintet in A major KV 581 was completed on 29 September 1789. Dedicated to close friend and fellow freemason Anton Stadler, it was named by the composer the “Stadler” quintet. Its premiere took place on 22 December the same year at a concert of the Viennese Musical Society at the Burgtheater.
In the 18th century, the clarinet was a novelty instrument, introduced into orchestra by composers of the Mannheim school. It began to appear regularly in Mozart’s works in 1773. Yet it is only in his Viennese years that the composer wrote three pieces where the clarinet was treated as the solo instrument. Apart from the quintet in A major, these are Trio in E flat major KV 498 (1786) and Clarinet Concerto in A major KV 622 (1791). All three have been dedicated to Stadler, one of the greatest virtuosi of the time.
Quintet has been written during Mozart’s work on Cosi fan tutte and much of the opera’s emotional aura can be found in its vocal singing qualities. The piece consists of four movements based on the classical cycle model. Despite the outstanding clarinet part, Mozart preserves a balance between all instruments of the ensemble to create a synthesis of chamber and concerting style. His innovative combination of the clarinet with a string quartet became an inspiration for many later composers.
• Movement One (Allegro, A major), in sonata form, opens with a calm choral theme of the string quartet. Its narration is twice interrupted by virtuosic passages of the clarinet, which will provide the material for a tempestuous development. The melody of the initial theme is developed by lyrical arabesques in the clarinet, later taken over by the cello. The cheerful and delicate second theme is intoned in the violin (E major) and then brought by the clarinet to a minor key (E minor), filling the melody with a melancholy tone. In the recapitulation, the ambivalent mood is preserved in the second theme (A major/A minor).
• Movement Two (Larghetto, D major) has been written as a song. The soft, vocally-conducted melody of the clarinet is accompanied by the other instruments. Only in the middle fragment is the clarinet joined in sophisticated dialogue by the violin.
• Minuet (A major), intoned by all instruments of the quintet, is divided by two contrasting trios. The first, (in A minor), performed by strings alone, relates, in its nostalgic mood, to the earlier movements, while the second (in A major) is a stylization of a folk landler.
• The final movement (Allegretto, A major) is a theme with six variations that display both the virtuosity of the individual instruments of the ensemble and the varied expressive potential of the theme.
Ewa Siemdaj