The Tone of a Tender Heart A Brief History of the Clarinet Repertoire
Michael Kube
In a letter to his father, written from Mannheim on December 3, 1778, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart enthusiastically remarked, referencing Salzburg’s Court Orchestra: “If only we also had clarinetti! – you would not believe the wonderful effect a symphony achieves with flutes, oboes and clarinets!” Indeed, the clarinet, which had evolved from the chalumeau just a few decades earlier, was a completely new instrument at the time—in solo playing, chamber music, and orchestras. With its sonic variety offering three characteristic registers, it was a welcome addition to the Mannheim Court Orchestra, an ensemble its contemporaries considered extraordinary and unique in its sound anyway. In his Ideen zu einer Ästhetik der Tonkunst (“Ideas Towards an Aesthetic of Music”) of 1785, Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart exuberantly described the Mannheim orchestra, but also, specifically, the clarinet: “Its character is: emotion overflowing with love,—quite the tone of a tender heart […].The tone is so sweet, so languorous; and anyone who commands its intermediate colors may be sure to find himself vanquishing many hearts.” This enthusiasm for a comparatively young instrument, the last to find its place within the classical orchestra lineup, was preceded by a remarkable technical development over the course of the 18th century that had a profound influence on the clarinet’s sonority. The Nürnberg-based instrument maker Johann Christoph Denner, who died in 1707, is widely considered the inventor of the clarinet. In his renowned workshop, which built mainly oboes and recorders, he developed the chalumeau, a woodwind with a low timbre and rather limited tonal range, into an instrument that 15
