W. A. Mozart - Clarinet Quintet in A major K. 581 III. Menuetto - "Stadler"

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Clarinet Quintet in A major K. 581 III. Menuetto - David Shifrin,

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Quintet in A major for Clarinet and Strings, K. 581, was written in 1789 for the clarinetist Anton Stadler.

A clarinet quintet is a work for one clarinet and a string quartet (two violins, a viola and a cello). Although originally written for basset clarinet,[1] it is almost always played on a clarinet in A or B-flat. It was Mozart's only completed clarinet quintet, and is one of the earliest and best-known works written especially for the instrument. It remains to this day one of the most admired of the composer's works. The quintet is sometimes referred to as the Stadler Quintet; Mozart so described it in a letter of April 1790.

The quintet consists of four movements:

Allegro, 2/2
Larghetto, 3/4 in D major
Menuetto – Trio I – Trio II, 3/4 (Trio I in A minor)
Allegretto con Variazioni, 2/2


Anton Paul Stadler (1753 - 1812) was a famous Austrian clarinet and basset horn player.

He was a clarinet virtuoso of Vienna and a very close friend of Mozart. Mozart wrote specifically for his friend, fellow freemason, Anton Stadler.

Stadler was "a leading player" of his day, however, he was often known to choose second clarinet parts because he preferred the lower portion of the instrument's range. He was reputed to be able to produce a beautiful tone, with exceptional mastery of the low register of the basset clarinet playing. His greatest works for clarinet were not written until 1773, the earliest date that Anton Stadler was known to be in Vienna.

Mozart also wrote a trio for clarinet, viola and piano for Stadler, the so-called Kegelstatt Trio, in 1786.

Alfred Einstein notes that while the clarinet "predominates as primus inter pares" (first amongst equals) this is nonetheless "chamber music work of the finest kind" and the roles are distributed more equally than they would be in a more concertante quintet for wind and strings.

Painting - A lady playing a lute in a landscape by Franco-Flemish School