The Clarinet Quartet, also known as Quartet for Clarinet and String Trio, is a work for

clarinet The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches ...

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

viola The viola ( , also , ) is a string instrument that is bow (music), bowed, plucked, or played with varying techniques. Slightly larger than a violin, it has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of ...

, and

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...

by Polish composer

Krzysztof Penderecki Krzysztof Eugeniusz Penderecki (; 23 November 1933 – 29 March 2020) was a Polish composer and conductor. His best known works include ''Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima'', Symphony No. 3, his '' St Luke Passion'', ''Polish Requiem'', ''A ...

. It was finished in 1993.

Composition and premiere

This composition was dedicated to Ake Holmquist and premiered in

Lübeck Lübeck (; Low German also ), officially the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (german: Hansestadt Lübeck), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 217,000 inhabitants, Lübeck is the second-largest city on the German Baltic coast and in the stat ...

on August 13, 1993. For this performance, Israeli clarinetist

Sharon Kam Sharon Kam ( he, שרון קם; born August 11, 1971) is an Israeli–German clarinetist. She won the ARD International Music Competition in 1992. Biography After completing her music studies at the Juilliard School of Music in New York, wher ...

, German violinist

Christoph Poppen Christoph Poppen (born 9 March 1956) is a German conductor, violinist and academic teacher. Career Poppen was born in Münster. As a violinist, he was awarded first prize in the Kocian Violin Competition age 14. He studied the violin with Kur ...

, American violist

Kim Kashkashian Kim Kashkashian (born August 31, 1952) is an American violist. She is recognized as one of the world's top violists. She has spent her career in the US and Europe and collaborated with many major contemporary composers. In 2013 she won a Grammy A ...

, and collaborator and Russian cellist Boris Piergamienszczikow played the work under the baton of Penderecki himself. These musicians also performed the piece to be broadcast in television, also with Penderecki as conductor. It was later published by

Schott Music Schott Music () is one of the oldest German music publishers. It is also one of the largest music publishing houses in Europe, and is the second oldest music publisher after Breitkopf & Härtel. The company headquarters of Schott Music were fou ...

. Harry Kinross-White also wrote an arrangement of this composition for

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to pr ...

quartet in 1999. The first performance of this arrangement took place in the Dresden Days of Contemporary Music in 1999 by

Raschèr Saxophone Quartet The Raschèr Saxophone Quartet is a professional ensemble of four saxophonists which performs classical and modern music. The quartet was founded in the United States in 1969 by prominent classical saxophonist Sigurd Raschèr and his daughter, Ca ...

Analysis

The ''Clarinet Quartet'' takes approximately 15 minutes to perform and is in four movements. The movement list is as follows: # Notturno. Adagio # Scherzo. Vivacissimo # Serenade. Tempo di Valse # Abschied. Larghetto

Reception

This composition received universal acclaim, both in the first performance and in recordings. In the premiere, the composition was played twice due to audience demand. According to Lutz Lesle, the composition was inspired by Schubert's

String Quintet A string quintet is a musical composition for five string players. As an extension to the string quartet (two violins, a viola, and a cello), a string quintet includes a fifth string instrument, usually a second viola (a so-called "viola quintet" ...

Notable recordings

Following are some of the most well-known recordings of this piece: The saxophone quartet version has also been recorded by

and released by

BIS Records BIS Records is a record label founded in 1973 by Robert von Bahr. It is located in Åkersberga, Sweden. BIS focuses on classical music, both contemporary and early, especially works that are not already well represented by existing recordings. ...

in 2001.

References

External links

* A preview of the score is availabl
here
* The video version of this composition i
IMDb
{{Krzysztof Penderecki Compositions for clarinet Chamber music by Krzysztof Penderecki 1993 compositions