Name: Chamber Music Series: Farrenc
Start: 2023-09-22T19:00:00
Location: First Presbyterian Church-Tulsa

Tulsa Symphony Orchestra

Wolfgang Mozart (1756-1791) probably discovered the clarinet in 1778 while visiting Mannheim where clarinets had been a part of the orchestra for twenty years. But he didn’t write music featuring the clarinet until after moving to Vienna in 1781 where he met the virtuoso, Anton Stadler. Stadler was the clarinetist Mozart had in mind for virtually all of his most celebrated works with clarinet including the Clarinet Concerto, the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings and the less familiar Trio for Piano, Clarinet and Viola in E-flat, K. 498 “The Kegelstatt.” Though not as well-known as its counterparts, it was composed for performance by one of Mozart’s piano students, Franziska von Jacquin, with Mozart playing the viola, and Stadler on clarinet. In the able hands of this ensemble, Mozart was free to write a work for three independent parts allowing each member of the group, especially the piano, to have opportunities for solo display—even the often-neglected viola. The work is exceptional for its unconventional instrumentation, form, and convivial sense of interplay, perhaps due to the origins of the work being composed for a group of intimates in an informal setting. The name, “Kegelstatt,” meaning skittle alley (Skittle is a version of lawn bowling), is probably mistakenly applied to this work but originally intended for the dedication of another work by Mozart.