Appendix 1 - A review of the Breitkopf and Härtel edition in the Leipzig Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, 4 (March 1802)

Summary

The original musical examples are included here. In a number of places the author simply cites the page numbers and lines of the clarinet part under review. To these references have been added bar numbers in square brackets. The following translation by William McColl originally appeared in The Clarinet, 9/2 (1982), and is reproduced with his kind permission.

Review

Concert pour Clarinette avec accompagnement de 2 Violons, 2 Flûtes, 2 Bassons, 2 Cors, Viola (Alto) et Basse par W. A. Mozart. Chez Breitkopf et Härtel, à Leipsic (Price 2 Thalers)

The reviewer, who has this magnificent concerto lying before him in score form, can impart to all good clarinettists the happy certainty that none other than Mozart – only he – can have written it; that consequently it must be, in view of the beautiful, proper, and tasteful composition, the foremost clarinet concerto in the world; for, so far as the reviewer knows, only this one by him exists. Of course it is difficult, and even very difficult, whereof anyone even partially familiar with the clarinet will be easily convinced by the most fleeting perusal of a few places in this concerto; for example, right on the first page, line thirteen and following [1/79–83].