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In the series finale of M*A*S*H* (“Goodbye, Farewell and Amen”) way back in 1983, Major Charles Winchester, thoracic surgeon, classical music lover, snob, and good Boston Brahmin, teaches five Chinese POWs in Korea to play Mozart’s clarinet quintet on what appears to be a violin, bamboo flute, erhu, accordion, and some kind of glockenspiel. You know...it kinda works.

I still remember hearing that music and thinking it sounded so familiar although I was sure I’d never heard it before. The Mozart clarinet quintet is just that kind of piece, something so pure maybe we are all born with it in our ear. Though written in the sunny key of A Major, the quintet somehow feels dipped in melancholy. Maybe that’s part of why it appeals to me; I enjoy complexity and contradiction in art and life. We’ll be playing the Mozart twice this summer with friend of NCMF, clarinetist Todd Palmer, returning after far too many years. (Tickets go on sale in June.)

It turns out there is a good story behind the composition. The late Willard J. Hertz gives some background which I am reproducing with the generous permission of the Portland Conservatory of Music.  

David Yang, Artistic Director

‍“Mozart first heard the clarinet in London at the age of 8 when both he and the instrument were still musical novelties. As his skill and self-confidence as a composer matured, he used the clarinet increasingly in his orchestral works and operas, but he was reluctant about introducing it into his chamber music. While he was attracted by the instrument’s tone quality and unexcelled clarity in rapid passages, he apparently questioned its ability to blend in small instrumental groups.

The influence that eventually changed his mind was Anton Stadler, the first notable clarinet virtuoso in Vienna. Mozart and Stadler met in Salzburg in 1781, and their friendship ripened in Vienna where they were members of the same music circle and Masonic lodge. To Mozart, the relationship was not entirely rewarding – Stadler cheated the composer in money matters at a time when the latter was in financial straits, and for a while he lived like a parasite in Mozart’s home.

Their personal relations notwithstanding, Stadler helped Mozart realize the still untapped potential of the clarinet. Inspired by Stadler, Mozart wrote four great works involving or featuring the instrument – the Quintet for Piano and Winds, K. 452; the Trio for Clarinet, Viola and Piano, K. 498; the Clarinet Concerto, K. 622, and this quintet.

The quintet was completed on September 29, 1789, and was first performed on December 22, 1789, at a concert given by the Society of Musicians for the benefit of widows and orphans. Stadler, of course, played the clarinet, and Mozart, his favorite chamber music assignment, the viola.

What gives the quintet its unique place in chamber music is Mozart’s consummate skill in balancing the distinctive tone color and technical resources of the clarinet with those of the strings. While the clarinet cannot help but be conspicuous, it never protrudes like a solo instrument and never overshadows the first violin in agility or bravura. It alternates with the first violin in announcing themes and takes frequent rests to give the other instruments a chance. Mozart was particularly imaginative in using for special effect the chalumeau or lowest register of the clarinet with its rich, dark and throaty sound.”

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