Mozart's Clarinet Concerto & Smetana's Má Vlast

Mozart's autumn sounds

Mozart wrote his Clarinet Concerto two months before his death for his Freemason friend Anton Stadler (1753-1812). Stadler even had a special instrument with extra low tones built for it. Unfortunately, that has been lost, just like the manuscript of Mozart's concerto. After the composer's death, an adapted score was published for the standard clarinet in A.

Smetana's complete cycle

Bedřich Smetana is considered the father of Czech music and owes his international reputation to one masterpiece: 'The Moldau', the second part of Má Vlast (My Fatherland), a cycle of 6 symphonic poems. Má Vlast is nothing more than a six-part symphony and, as such, can compete with the colossi of Mahler, who greatly admired Smetana (and was also a born Czech). It is a brilliant composition by a profoundly deaf, sick man and a work that is far too rarely performed in its complete form in the concert hall.