What better way to get back in the swing than with two chamber works by Mozart, the composer whose love of the clarinet turbo-charged its development?
Clarinettists Sarah Thurlow and Katherine Spencer are joined by a string trio for tonight’s gig, that will include Mozart’s Clarinet Quartet No. 2 and an Allegro for clarinet, basset horn and string trio. In the two sets we’ll also hear a quartet for basset horn by Georg Drushetzky – a Czech composer and oboist who wrote a number of pieces for the instrument and was briefly in Vienna in the 1780s – and a clarinet quartet by Bernhard Crusell – born in 1775, he was an internationally renowned virtuoso on the instrument, and made an outstanding contribution to the evolving clarinet repertoire in the early 19th Century (he was considered the most significant Finnish composer before Sibelius). And never knowingly performing at less than peak Queen levels (hint)… they’ll be throwing in some arias from Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute.
This gig will offer the opportunity get immersed in the clarinets of Mozart’s time ahead of our concert on 1 February when Katherine Spencer performs Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto on a specially made basset clarinet.
