Nicole van Bruggen owns one of many rarest and most traditionally important devices in Australia, partly invented by Mozart. But her basset clarinet is simply 20 years outdated.
“It’s a replica of the precise basset clarinet constructed by Theodore Lotz in Vienna and performed by Anton Stadler, Mozart’s favorite clarinet participant,” Sydney-born van Bruggen explains.
Solely two items have been composed particularly for the basset clarinet, each by Mozart: his Clarinet Concerto and Clarinet Quintet in A significant.
Nicole van Bruggen holds her basset clarinet, a duplicate of the instrument commissioned by Mozart. Credit score:Flavio Branceleone
Van Bruggen, who’s performing a program with the Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra that features the clarinet quintet, likes to cite an 18th-century music critic seeing the basset clarinet for the primary time.
“The critic mentioned it has a bulbous part which stands out sideways, and might be used for a smoking pipe.”
So why didn’t Mozart write extra works for the instrument he’d helped create?
Right here begins the Mozart magical thriller tour.
There was solely a single basset clarinet created by Lotz for Stadler, “however Stadler misplaced it,” van Bruggen says as if it’s regular to mislay a priceless instrument. “There was no prototype. No different up to date composers might write any music for it as a result of the instrument didn’t exist.”
For one of the best a part of two centuries, Mozart’s clarinet compositions have been by no means heard the way in which he meant them to be, regardless of the efforts of some instrument makers to re-imagine the basset clarinet.
