They almost always mean \u201chow about the<\/em><\/strong> clarinet concerto?\u201d<\/p>\n And which, you may ask, is \u201cthe\u201d <\/em><\/strong>clarinet concerto?<\/p>\n Well, although the first piece I conducted with a good orchestra was the Copland Clarinet Concerto, for most music lovers, and certainly, and more worryingly, most program committees, the Mozart\u00a0 Clarinet\u00a0 Concerto is the only one<\/strong><\/em> worth thinking about.<\/p>\n Let me be perfectly clear- the Mozart Clarinet Concerto is everything people say it is. Sublime. Moving. Magical.<\/p>\n At least on the page.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I love the Mozart, but how many times have I heard it played like muzak? How many times has the slow movement ground to a halt? How often do you sit through an entire performance wondering how the clarinetist never seems to notice that he\u2019s just a little flat or a little sharp on every note?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mozart died at the age of 36, thus mercifully spared hearing too many bad performances of the Clarinet Concerto<\/p><\/div>\n And yet, it seems like every time people hear the second movement of this wonderful piece, they manage to convince themselves they\u2019ve experienced a revelation, been touched to their core, been elevated, been cleansed. It is certainly touching testimony as to how much people love Mozart\u2019s music, but I\u2019m sure there is often a huge \u201cEmperor\u2019s New Clothes\u201d factor. Well, call me the cheeky boy in the story, but I\u2019ve sat through, played and even conducted too many gahdaffel performances of the Mozart Clarinet concerto, practically chewing my own arms off to forget the mixture of extreme boredom and frustration. Hearing it is not always the transformative experience it should be.<\/p>\n A special piece ought to deserve a special performance. \u00a0The very qualities that make the Mozart, well-played, so special- it\u2019s intimacy and fragility- ought to seriously mitigate against it being hacked through or loved to death, but its status as one of the tried-and-true \u201cbums on seats\u201d safe choices of the repertoire means that it has become cannon fodder for far too many dodgy freelance outfits putting it together in 30 minutes of half-hearted rehearsal, or student and amateur groups who might spend 10 weeks learning to play it with a horrible sound. My sister, also a conductor, once explained to the board of one of her orchestras why she wouldn\u2019t let them play Mozart in her first season; \u201cMozart\u201d she said, \u201cis the string bikini of composers, and I just think that we, as an orchestra, don\u2019t have the body to pull it off yet.\u201d The worst Mozart Clarinet Concerto I ever heard, was not well-meaning-but-technically-limited players, nor an ad hoc freelance outfit, but a TV broadcast by one of the most famous London orchestras several years ago. I still get cranky when I think about it. Was anyone on stage that night listening?<\/p>\n Sometimes the slow movement is played so slowly and over-reverentially that it makes the last movement of Mahler 9 sound like The Flight of the Bumblebee. Sometimes the whole piece just sits there like an uneaten bowl of oatmeal, smooth and creamy, sure, but becoming less appetizing by the second.<\/p>\n Frankly, for me, \u00a0most performances of this delicate masterpiece seem to evoke the image of a beautiful young girl (the piece) being pawed by a sweaty, hairy and creepy middle-aged man (the performers). Pawed and pawed and pawed- slowly and getting slower, and always out of tune\u2026.<\/p>\n Anyway, I\u2019ve conducted it quite a few times and played it gazillions, and there have been some good nights, but also some long<\/em><\/strong> ones. Funnily, the best and worst performances I\u2019ve done were with the same clarinetist, which ought to underline how difficult the piece really is. At this stage, I\u2019d like to do it with a clarinet player I have some rapport with, which wouldn\u2019t have been the case in this instance, and in a situation where we could spend a bit of extra time on the orchestra part.\u00a0 In the meantime, the thought of another contribution to the world supply of sleepy and sloppy Mozart doesn\u2019t appeal.<\/p>\n Fortunately, there are other clarinet concertos out there. I do love<\/em><\/strong> the Copland, but it is for string orchestra, and we wanted to keep the winds involved. There\u2019s the Nielsen, but it\u2019s a little weird and wasn\u2019t going to \u00a0fit very elegantly on a program of Haydn and Mozart. Likewise the fantastic Corigliano.<\/p>\n What about Weber?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/Mozart-Picture.jpeg\" "\\"Mozart")
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