Classic

Mozart Clarinet & Oboe Concertos (Pay, Piguet Hogwood, Academy of Ancient Music) [EAC >FL

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Clarinet Concerto in A major
Oboe Concerto in C major

Antony Pay, Basset clarinet
Michel Piguet, Oboe

Christopher Hogwood (cond.)
Academy of Ancient Music

Decca, 1986. 46'48"

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"Christopher Hogwood was the acceptable face of early music, a conductor who never allowed dogmas of authenticity to overwhelm inherent musicality. When he persuaded Decca to let him record practically the whole of Mozart's orchestral opus - symphonies, concertos, interludes, the lot - it was assumed that nothing in the performances would frighten habitual record buffs who knew their Mozart back to front.

The clarinet concerto scared the pants off them. Hogwood and his soloist, Antony Pay, took the view that the work had never been intended for clarinet, a relatively new and high-pitched instrument that was just coming into use in 1789. The first movement was specifically sketched, in G major, for basset horn, and ten weeks before his death Mozart told his wife, Constanze, that he was orchestrating the rondo finale for Anton Stadler's basset clarinet, which had an extended lower range. To play it on a modern clarinet was, in Hogwood's view, anomalous to the point of ridicule.

Pay played it sweet and low. In less assured hands, the basset clarinet sounds growly, but so mellifluous was Pay's tone and so accomplished Hogwood's accompaniment that their performance established not just an ulterior appreciation of a much-loved work but a new tolerance in record shops for period practice as a whole."

-- Norman Lebrecht, The Life and Death of Classical Music (section Masterpieces: 100 Milestones of the Recorded Century)

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