Charles Neidich, L'archibudelli Mozart Clarinet Quintet in A Major, K. 581 (1993)

This is one of the most beautiful chamber music recordings I have ever heard! The playing is absolutely superb! The phrasing is just lovely and the intonation perfect. After hearing this recording, one can hardly doubt the qualities of the historical instruments. The clear and soft sound of the gut string and the amazing period clarinet used creates something really amazing. Don't miss this one!

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A major, K. 622, was completed in October 1791 for the clarinettist Anton Stadler. It consists of three movements, in a fast–slow–fast succession.

Unquestionably, the clarinet quintets of Mozart and Brahms have earned time-honored and well-deserved places in the repertoire of clarinetists worldwide. In the informative and well-written annotations by Eric Hoeprich, we read that “they embody the maturity, depth, experience, and possibly even a premonition of an otherworldliness soon to be experienced firsthand.”

Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A major, K. 622, and Clarinet Quintet in A major, K. 581, are masterpieces of the period at the end of his life, and they've been recorded hundreds if not thousands of times. To come up with a standout recording at this point, and indeed without doing anything radical, is quite an accomplishment, but that's what Israeli-German violinist Sharon Kam does here. These performances can be classified with those that use modern instruments but show a distinct influence from historical performance practices; the Austrian-Hungarian Haydn Philharmonic is a small group designed for the dimensions of Haydn's work spaces at Esterházy castle, and Kam uses a basset clarinet (a modern one), with the somewhat extended range of the instrument for which Mozart wrote the two works.

The coupling of these two supreme masterpieces among clarinet quintets is surprisingly rare, coming as a rule in repackages of vintage recordings. Here, by contrast, we have a completely new recording of talented young performers in Harmonia Mundi’s equivalent to EMI’s Debut series, the budget-price Les Nouveaux Interpretes. The Italian, Alessandro Carbonare, is currently the principal clarinet of the Orchestre Nationale de France, but has been appearing in concertos in various European countries.