Weber Clarinet Concertino
Weber Clarinet Concertino Program Notes
Carl Maria von Weber was an innovator at the beginning of the Romantic era, an industrious and serious musician. His father had believed young Carl to be another child prodigy like Mozart, which led to a childhood of travel. Clearly he was very talented, composing operas and taking on music director positions while still a teenager. Actually, Weber and Mozart were connected by marriage – Weber’s father’s older half-brother was the father of Mozart’s wife Constanze. (Sharing one grandparent, this makes Carl Maria and Constanze half-cousins.) Touring in 1811, Weber met clarinetist Heinrich Bärmann, a virtuoso member of the orchestra in Munich, and composed this Concertino. It was so successful that theKing (Maximilian Joseph of Bavaria) immediately commissioned another two concertos. Other members of the orchestra requested works for their instruments, and the resulting Bassoon concerto remains a staple of the repertoire. Weber’s other innovations in a new, dramatic style of German opera provided inspiration to Wagner. (Also, it would be King Maximilian Joseph’s great-grandson, King Ludwig II, who bankrolled Wagner’s Bayreuth Festspielhaus.)
Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber
Born: November 1786, Eutin, Germany
Died: June 5, 1826, London, United Kingdom