Clarinet Concerto No.5

Carl Stamitz (1745-1801) is unquestionably the best-known of the second generation of composers associated with the Mannheim court although for most of his career he was based elsewhere. He received his earliest musical training from his brilliant and famous father, Johann, Director of Instrumental Music and leader of the Mannheim court orchestra, and after his early death, with a number of the leading court musicians. Stamitz left Mannheim in 1770 and worked for some years in Paris before devoting the remainder of his life to composition and touring as a virtuoso violist. Among the most historically significant of Stamitz’s works are the clarinet concertos which rank not only among the earliest concertos for the instrument but also among the finest of any concertos by Mozart’s contemporaries. Comparatively little is known about the origin of these works although he latest research has narrowed the composition date of the eight authentic works to around the years 1771-1776 when Stamitz was living in Paris. Stamitz would have been well acquainted with the clarinet prior to his move to Paris in 1770 as the Mannheim court orchestra was among the first to include clarinets among its forces. His early experience of the clarinet was consolidated further through his friendship with the great Bohemian clarinet virtuoso Johann Joseph Beer (1744-1811) whom he met in Paris. Their professional association, similar in many ways to that of Mozart and Stadler, resulted not only in a number of joint performances at the Concerts Spirituels but also in a succession of concertos and chamber works which were composed for Beer’s use. Beer’s performance of one of Carl Stamitz’s clarinet concertos on 24 December 1771 is the first documented performance of a clarinet concerto in Paris. While Beer’s unrivalled technical command of the five-keyed clarinet undoubtedly influenced the way in which Stamitz wrote for it, the overall musical quality of Stamitz’s concertos, however, owes far less to the virtuosity of the solo writing than to his elegant melodic style, structural subtlety and orchestral flair.