6 - Innovation and Convention in the Golden Age of the Clarinet Concerto, ca. 1800–1830

Summary

In 1869 the renowned Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick recognized that the funeral knell for concertos for woodwinds had long since begun to toll: “At the present time, the piano and violin almost exclusively occupy the field of solo virtuosity. Other than these, only the violoncello makes an occasional appearance. Concertos for wind instruments, which used to be so popular, have been on the verge of extinction for the past 20 years.” Indeed, the mid- to late nineteenth century, which saw the production of many of the most beloved concertos in the piano and violin repertoires by the likes of Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, Saint-Saëns, Tchaikovsky, and Dvořák, was virtually barren of the production of concertos for woodwinds. Between 1830 and 1900 no major composer wrote a clarinet concerto, and the few concertos written for the instrument in this time period have not found a secure place in the repertoire. As Hanslick indicates, this long dry stretch followed a period rich in wind concertos. In the first three decades of the nineteenth century the clarinet concerto in particular occupied an important position in the output of some of the leading composers of the day. The years from 1800 to 1830 saw the composition of a generous handful of clarinet concertos by major composers and several dozen more by less renowned composers—many of which are artistically satisfying, and all of which are useful for understanding the conventions of the genre.

The present chapter grows out of an examination of some thirty-two clarinet concertos beginning with Mozart's Concerto in A Major, K. 622 (1791) and ending with the Concerto in G Minor, op. 29 (1854), by Julius Rietz. The two leading composers of clarinet concertos after Mozart in this period, Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826) and Louis Spohr (1784–1859), wrote their concertos for the two most prominent clarinet virtuosi of the day: Heinrich Baermann (1784–1847) and Johann Simon Hermstedt (1778–1846), respectively. The third most important composer of clarinet concertos in this period, Bernhard Henrik Crusell (1775–1838), a Swede of Finnish origin, was the most sophisticated composer among the clarinet virtuosi who also composed for their instrument.