Music and Vinyl: Mozart - Clarinet Quintet K.581

Mozart's Clarinet Quintet was written for Anton Stadler, who was the soloist on its first performance - in Vienna on 22nd December 1789. One of the first works for the modern form of the clarinet - developed by Stadler from the basset-horn - it has become a core work of the clarinet repertoire along with Mozart's Clarinet Concerto written two years later, also for Stadler.

The work is in four movements, with the finale having a theme and variations rather than the usual rondo.

This recording, originally released in 1976, has the English clarinettist Gervase de Peyer paired with the Amadeus Quartet. De Peyer, who died in 2017 aged 90, studied with Frederick Thurston at the Royal College of Music, saw wartime service with the Royal Marines Band, and for almost twenty years was principal clarinet with the London Symphony Orchestra. It is his glissando that opens Andre Previn's 1971 recording of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue - which you can listen to here. He was also a founding member of the Melos Ensemble.