MBM welcomes guest artist Eric Hoeprich. A leading authority on the early clarinet, Mr. Hoeprich was a founding member of the Orchestra of the 18th-Century and has served on the faculty of the Paris Conservatory and the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague. He is a member of the Smithsonian Chamber Players and has recorded most of the repertoire for the 18th- and 19th-century clarinet on the Philips, Deutsche Grammaphon, EMI, and Harmonia Mundi labels.

Mozart fell in love with the clarinet, a fairly new instrument at the time, during the final decade of his career, 1781–91. One undoubtable influence was the beautiful and virtuosic playing of Anton Stadler for whom Mozart wrote his Trio in E-flat major, K. 498, “Kegelstatt,” and the Clarinet Quintet, K. 581—both featured in this MBM program. Our concert will open with the ever-congenial Kegelstatt, Hausmusik to the nth degree. It is thrilling to think of the first performance of this work—indeed, at a home, that of fortepianist Francesca von Jacquin—with the host on fortepiano, Stadler on clarinet, and Mozart himself (the supreme fortepianist) happily on viola—his favorite string instrument to play. The trio will be followed by the Piano Quartet in G minor, K. 478, whose dramatic opening movement presages the fateful Romanticism of Beethoven. Yet it is Mozart’s supreme gift for lyricism within drama—somehow always moving the action forward—that distinguishes him from his successors. The concert closes with the Clarinet Quintet. Here, Mozart taps into the clarinet’s innate ability to evoke a sense of sylvan ease, suggesting the human voice gliding along in a wordless song. Emily Dickinson’s matchless stanza comes to mind:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers—