Sound explorations
The Danish Clarinet Trio
Tommaso Lonquich, clarinet
Jonathan Slaatto, cello
Martin Qvist Hansen, piano
Among the innovations of the Classical period was the emergence of new instruments. It is certainly to Mozart that we owe the clarinet’s first ‘letter of nobility’, for which he had found a magnificent virtuoso in the person of Anton Stadler. Admittedly, the cello is no ‘newcomer’, but in the works of Beethoven – who wished to win over Frederick William II, King of Prussia, who played the cello in his spare time – the assertion of its melodic and expressive role was entirely new in the realm of chamber music. As for Brahms, it was his encounter with the virtuoso Richard Mühlfeld that inspired him to write for the clarinet. Inexperienced in the solo use of this instrument, he drew on the model of Beethoven’s Opus 11 to conceive this first composition, in which the clarinet engages in a dialogue with the cello.
Programme:
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Trio in E flat major, K. 498 (The Skittles Trio)
Ludwig van Beethoven: Trio in B flat major, Op. 11
Johannes Brahms: Trio in A minor, Op. 114