Our wonderful Product Coordinator – Karolina Szymanik – recommends Mozart Symphonies Nos. 29 & 33, Clarinet Concerto by Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Bernhard Forck and Ernst Schlader (released in September 2024).
“At the outset, I would like to point out that I believe we are all incredibly fortunate to be able to experience an example of the unquestionable genius that is the work of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. I have lived with this belief for an obscenely long time, as well as with the one concerning his clarinet concerto.
As an oboist myself, I have always envied clarinettists because I still believe that of all the concertos for wind instruments Mozart wrote, this one is truly special, just as the clarinet itself was always special to him. In my hands, I hold an album that allows us to get to know this composition in its original version, written for the truly remarkable instrument we know today as the basset clarinet. I’ll honestly say that I only reaffirm my belief in the uniqueness of this piece, though this is undoubtedly due to the ear-catching timbre and technical capabilities of Ernst Schlader and the accompanying Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, an ensemble I got to know long before my personal decision to take up historical performance, and which I still respect a lot today, ready to explore their future musical interpretations.
The concerto is interwoven between two symphonies that magically take us back to 18th century Salzburg, and which give the whole album Mozart’s characteristic lightness, showing his peculiar ability to interweave comedy with elements of melancholy which personally captivated me one day, making me one of his most sincerely devoted admirers.”
Karolina Szymanik, Product Coordinator
