Widmann's Interview

“To Me, Every Note Is a Living Thing”

Jörg Widmann in Conversation about Weber’s Clarinet Quintet

Mr. Widmann, you are not only a composer and clarinetist, but also a dedecated admirer of the music of Carl Maria von Weber. In today’s concert you dedicate yourself to his Clarinet Quintet…

At the risk of sounding presumptuous: I would like to attempt a rehabilitation of this composer because I think he is terribly underrated. Even among highly esteemed colleagues, by the way. In conversation, there is always that element of “Yes, perhaps, but…” And that “but” is always about ultimately denying that Weber has a certain depth—a depth of feeling we accord the so-called “great composers.” Often, his virtuosity itself is criticized, the scales, the broken arpeggios. His Clarinet Quintet is a welcome object of criticism, if you want to look at it that way.

But you’re taking a different view.

I think Weber’s virtuosity is always soulful. I do see some weak points, but I would always like to defend him. (laughs) Take his Concertino: to me, it’s a masterwork. Twelve minutes, not one note too many—everything is in place. That slow introduction, and then such a naïve theme—naïve in the most beautiful sense—only Weber could come up with something like that. The following variations are never humdrum, they have their very own sonority. To write a variation just for low violas, the low register of the clarinet, and timpani, that creates an extraordinary, strange sensation. Schumann would have called it “a disreputable moment,” “eine verrufene Stelle.” This multitude of colors is something we always have to keep in mind in Weber’s music.

Weber was a champion of the clarinet, of its very own idiom, but his Clarinet Quintet has still remained a bit of a wallflower.

That’s true. When we think of the great clarinet quintets, it’s always Mozart, Brahms, and Reger. There is a line of tradition, so to speak, culminating in Reger’s quintet. It is written in A major and overall clearly references Mozart. And yet the last movement is also modeled on the variation movement in Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet. So the historical line running through these works is very clear. But I also see an unmistakable connection between Mozart and Weber. I would really place Weber’s Clarinet Quintet on par with the other great quintets.

Of course you can’t compare Brahms to Weber—they are different incarnations…

… but both originate with Mozart. Even the playfulness, the joy that Mozart’s Quintet takes in virtuosity, is directly continued by Weber. In Brahms’s case, everything is melody and essence. All of a sudden, there are absurdly difficult runs and arpeggios that come out of nowhere. For Weber, virtuosity has a complete different function.

Could you describe that in more detail?

Consider the fourth variation in the finale of Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet. This cheerfulness is continued in the same manner only in Weber’s work, but he also develops it further and takes it to extremes. The virtuosity Weber demands is spectacular. Of course those are scales and arpeggios, also at the very end. But when you play it drastically, and also take the tempo seriously, in the sense of Schumann, and exaggerate it—if you like, you could say: fast, faster, as fast as possible; even faster— then this takes on a transcendent quality. Resentment against Weber is a fundamental resentment against virtuosic music. You could make the same argument against Liszt, but he of course is credited with a fantastic kind of imagination—one that Weber has it in equal measure.

Where does this become evident?

For example in the second movement, which is so slow, so excessively slow, that both the performers and the listeners lose all sense of time—ideally. In this movement, which Weber, incidentally, entitled “Fantasia,” there are several chromatic rockets shooting upwards, followed by a magical, soft echo. Of course that has its reason in the clarinet’s idiom. Here, Weber captured the nature of the instrument almost ideally by very primitive means, which is what a chromatic scale is. When the scale occurs, however, especially in this low-lying movement, it literally sounds unheard of. There is greatness and strangeness in it. It can really only strike fear into you. And then this plagal ending—it sounds like an “Amen” or “So be it.” A highly unusual cadence. At that time, only Weber could come up with the idea of combining chromatics and church modes in such a way.

During the 18th and 19th centuries, composers were often also performers; over the course of the 20th century this gradually gave way to individual professionalization. You continue to be active as composer, clarinetist, and conductor. Without disrespect, how does one fit these three orientations into one calendar? The instrument, for one, requires daily practice.

It does! After this conversation, I’m going to practice the Mozart Clarinet Concerto. You have to remain physically and technically fit, maintaining the embouchure—that’s almost the most important thing. I’m very grateful to be able to do all these things, because each inspires the other. You know, I don’t stop being a composer when I play the Weber Quintet. On the other hand, I don’t stop being a performer when I write my opera Babylon. To me, every note is a living thing, with a physicality, a body, a head, and some kind of an end. That is where things touch. My compositions really take things to the limits in terms of playability—in an extension of Weber’s tradition, among others—and sometimes beyond. That’s where it gets interesting for me. It’s probably also the reason I find Weber so fascinating. I know the instruments, I know the limits, but I’m interested in going that decisive millimeter beyond it. This is the only way we can make new things possible. Without his clarinetist friend Baermann, Weber could not have written his compositions in this manner.

It was similar with Mozart and Stadler, with Spohr and Hermstedt… Stadler must have played incredibly beautifully, and Hermstedt as well. Technically, the four Spohr concertos are enormously difficult. If I had to choose, the second might be my favorite concerto. It’s very Weberesque, the two composers are very close to each other here. I think that in my own works, this exaggerated, perverse, or simply strange sonority has something to do with my original experience of Weber, when I first saw Der Freischütz. As a child, I found that shocking. I was so scared during the Wolf’s Glen scene! Children have a very good instinct for when adults are just trying to scare them—Schumann entitled one of his pieces in Kinderszenen “Fürchtenmachen,” “Striking Fear.” We like when it gets slightly creepy, but we know it’s not real. In Weber’s Wolf’s Glen scene, I experienced real, existential fear.

Today you know how these sounds are created.

And in Weber’s case, they are never an end unto themselves: the drastic, the harsh, and also these somber, darkly glowing ones. Hector Berlioz, in his book on instrumentation, praised the extraordinary nature of this new art of orchestration—and rightfully so!

Interview: Michael Kube

Translation: Alexa Nieschlag