Mozart Clarinet Concerto

• The third movement of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto begins with an anacrusis and features a chamber feel, just solo clarinet and strings.
• The movement includes a 8-bar theme made of two balanced four-bar phrases, the first ending on the dominant (E) and the second ending with a perfect cadence in A.
• The opening theme of the movement is repeated by the full orchestra, with contrasts in dynamics.
• The movement features a solo clarinet virtuosic passage, also starting with anacrusis, accompanied by strings.
• The movement ends with a return of the Rondo theme, which begins with a horns and is answered by the first violins, alternating dominant and tonic chords ending in a cadence at Bar 55–56.
• Section B of the movement, the first episode, is introduced by the clarinet with a ‘chamber’ orchestra (lighter texture) and features a clarinet melody that repeats down an octave and with a tonic pedal in violas, cellos and basses.
• The strings introduce a new idea in Section B, which is developed, including with a flute solo at Bar 77.
• Bassoons and violas play the same falling semitone melody at Bars 73–76.
• The movement features virtuosic semiquaver arpeggio passages from the clarinet over string accompaniment, in the dominant key of E major.
• The movement includes a short conversation across the orchestra, with a declamatory phrase in Horns answered by a dramatic dominant 7th with a flattened 9th chord at Bars 98 and 102.
• Mozart uses an augmented 6th chord resolving to chord V, which leads back to chord I for the return of Section A.
• Section A of the movement returns on clarinet, with the orchestra responding at Bar 121 with the cadential figure from Bar 51.
• The movement develops ideas from Section A further using sequential patterns and hemiola (Bars 131–2).
• Section C of the movement, the second episode, is in the relative minor key of F# minor and begins with anacrusis, with the clarinet melody repeating down an octave.
• The movement features huge leaps from clarinet in the subdominant key of D which contrasts the different registers of the clarinet.
• The movement includes a small repeat of Section A, with Mozart using Bar 1 for development.
• Section B melody returns (from bar 57) in the tonic minor key in bar 196.
• The movement ends with a figure based on a broken chord of A major in Bar 351, with two tonic chords in the final two bars.