As RF was saying in March, the time must be near when only basset versions of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto are acceptable at public concerts. For record collectors, I think that moment has arrived. Dr Fiske was praising Thea King's Hyperion recording of the Concerto (and the Quintet) on an instrument recently made for her by Selmer of Paris which I understand is now commercially available. Jeffrey Tate and the English Chamber Orchestra were her excellent accompanists, whereas the two new recordings I've been listening to are with 'period' bands and in each instance the Concerto is paired with the Oboe Concerto. Antony Pay's version attempts to recover the character of K622 as completely as possible through a reconstruction of the kind of Viennese instrument Mozart's original soloist (Anton Stadler) must have played on. The disc comes with an informative leaflet which includes photographs not only of the instrument Antony Pay plays but of the German oboe of 1783 Michel Piguet uses. So, if you're still thinking of the basset as a clarinet with a rather doleful expression, long floppy ears and a lower ground clearance than the normal model, you can now see what it actually looks like. No pictures of the Selmer instrument from Hyperion, but there is an article by Alec Hyatt King—a short survey of Mozart and the clarinet family as Mozart knew it and wrote for it, plus a history of the text of his Concerto, and for clarity and readability this couldn't be bettered. Dr Hyatt King, in telling a fascinating story, makes it clear why it has been so important in our own day for someone to re-invent the basset. The Deutsche Harmonia Mundi record is rather poorly presented from this point of view and tells us only that the wind instruments are originals or copies of old examples.
What is the fuss about? Well, the basset-clarinet was and is a distinctive instrument, with a range down to a (written) low C, sounding A in the lowest space of the bass clef, and it is the instrument for which Mozart wrote his Concerto. Four extra semitone steps were available to him at the bottom of the compass, therefore, as compared to the range of the modern A clarinet. All versions on the clarinet are corrupt to the extent that they are obliged to adopt alterations of his text in order to avoid the lowest four notes of his original; he made no such alterations himself. As dr Hyatt King puts it: the Concerto exploits the diversity of the basset-clarinet's full range and timbre, and ''the lower extension of the notes in the basset register enriches and darkens much of the tonal spectrum''. If you haven't already experienced a performance of the Concerto with a 'restored' form of the solo part, you have a delight in store.
Thea King has been a distinguished exponent of the work for many years, but the new L'Oiseau-Lyre, as a production, seems to me of a quite special excellence. The sound is beautiful, on LP particularly—I found the CD a touch edgier and was more conscious there of what recording engineers call extraneous noises—and even if the 'period' ethic is not to your taste, I think you are bound to agree that the Academy of Ancient Music have never sounded better. Christopher Hogwood has added a fortepiano in a discreet continuo role, and similarly a harpsichord in the Oboe Concerto, and the balance and quality of the orchestral sound make a lovely setting for the soloists. I wondered at first whether the acoustic in K622 was very slightly over-resonant—and then forgot about it. The performances are all of a piece. I have enjoyed them more and more. The soloists are strong musical personalities, as they need to be, n ot just expert players, and Antony Pay's performance strikes me as outstanding: spontaneous in character, rich in detailed inflexion, and at the same time projected with a long-range musical thinking that makes for a satisfying reading one is glad to return to. Pay is a soloist who picks you up at the beginning of the Concerto and puts you down only at the very end; and you feel that the orchestra have responded to him in that way too. Having played the Adagio as slowly as he dares, he brings a touch of urgency to the finale which I particularly like, giving that movement a sharper character than we often hear and making it a livelier foil to what has gone before. His ritenuto at the end of the Adagio is the only feature of his performance I don't care for.
Nicholas Shackleton writes interestingly in the Oiseau-Lyre leaflet about the characteristics of the late eighteenth-century Viennese instruments of the clarinet family. Peculiar to them, he says, is a better tone in the chalumeau register than contemporary instruments elsewhere possess, and he surmises that Stadler's basset-clarinet would almost certainly have had several of the extra keys that are such an aid to fluency and intonation in the basset register. The basset heard on this record was constructed according to these principles. It seems to me a triumphant success, and in respect of the intonation and firmness of its lowest notes demonstrably superior to what we hear on the Deutsche Harmonia Mundi and Hyperion recordings. On the Harmonia Mundi the quality is sometimes fog-horny, and I sense that the player is cautious about the low notes, as if they were difficult to control.
Hans Deinzer is agreeable to listen to, though a less personable soloist than Pay or King. He deserved a better accompaniment, which is rarely better than routine and often less than that. So did Helmut Hucke, the accomplished oboist on the other side. As with many of the Collegium Aureum's productions, I sense an unsatisfactory compromise and a lack of focus: the instrument may have 'authentic' tickets but the attempt to recover a style of playing appropriate to them is half-hearted. These performances are at something close to modern pitch, for a start. On the Oiseau-Lyre, on the other hand, Michel Piguet's account of the Oboe Concerto is the work of a remarkable scholar-performer. It draws strength from a throughgoing reconsideration of the text and of various aspects of the classical style—articulation, tempo, cadenzas, the performance of decorative appoggiaturas—and it deserves more comment than I can now give it. But it is not, I think, quite so successful a performance as that of the Clarinet Concerto. Though beautifully played, on a powerful instrument made five years after Mozart composed the piece, there is an air of deliberation about some of the detailing which suggests to me a seeker still going about this quest—or perhaps scholar trying to prove something. Uncommonly interesting listening none the less, and by no means a disappointment after the other side.'