5 Works That Continue to Fuel My Love for the Clarinet
Years after packing my clarinet up for the last time, these are the musical moments I turn to when I want to connect with the instrument that helped me find my voice.
I didn’t always love the clarinet.
In fact, back in fourth grade when everyone in my class had to pick an instrument to study, it was my third choice. I rolled my eyes with disappointment when my music teacher, Mr. Turek, told me too many students had already signed up for flute, and because I was left-handed, the cello wouldn’t be a great choice for me.
Thankfully I took to the instrument quickly, and as I progressed through middle and high school — a creative but painfully introverted gay kid lost in the banality of ’90s suburbia — the clarinet became an extension of my voice, one I could count on to express myself when shyness took over and words ultimately failed me.
But no, I didn’t really love the clarinet. Not until college, when two teachers helped me explore more of the instrument’s vocal character.
With their guidance, I came to realize the clarinet wasn’t just the shrieky, nasal instrument that’s maddeningly out of tune when played by dozens of students in a school concert band. It was actually one of the most mysterious, expressive instruments of the symphony orchestra. And by coming to know the full range of the clarinet’s voice — both burnished and bright, wistful and fiery — I was able to adapt the infinite possibilities of its sound to strengthen and amplify my own voice.
My performance career after college lasted a decade, roughly the amount of time it’s been since I last played the clarinet. And while I don’t miss sanding reeds, fixing leaky pads, running slippery scales, or practicing thorny technical passages far too complicated for my fingers, I do miss tapping into that voice — the one that sustained me for years when I struggled to express myself.
And in those moments, I turn to these five works, each of which showcases everything I love about the clarinet: its capacity for sustained melody, its dark and woodsy timbre, and its uncanny ability to mimic the human voice.
W.A. Mozart, Clarinet Concerto, mvmt. II
Mozart may not have been the first composer to write for the clarinet — but he definitely put the new woodwind instrument on the map. Inspired by the clarinetist Anton Stadler, Mozart penned for the Viennese virtuoso a charming quintet for clarinet and strings and his beloved clarinet concerto, one of the composer’s final works.
While the first and third movements showcase the clarinet’s jovial, mercurial side, it’s the central adagio that I turn to. Over a bed of gently swaying strings, the clarinet sings an unadorned, lullaby-like melody whose beauty lies in its simplicity. Soloist and orchestra trade the gentle, sighing melody back and forth, and when those opening bars make their return later in the movement, the soloist gets to show off one of the clarinet’s most captivating gifts: the ability to sing in a true whisper. Goosebumps.
Johannes Brahms, Clarinet Quintet, mvmt. II
Like Mozart, Brahms was also drawn to the clarinet thanks to a budding friendship. In fact, Brahms was so moved by the playing of clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld that the composer came out of self-imposed retirement to create works for his new muse. Quite a few, in fact: a trio for clarinet, cello, and piano; two substantial sonatas; and the quintet for clarinet and string quartet.
It’s in the quintet’s second movement that we see Brahms channeling a lifetime of experience into his writing, with a special focus on the Bohemian folk music he heard traveling bands perform in his hometown of Hamburg. After a tranquil opening in which the clarinet suspends a languid, major-key melody atop the gentle, muted strings, the mood suddenly shifts. Quietly, major turns into minor: Time to strike up the band.
From the depths of its lowest register, the clarinet gradually transforms the main theme from the work’s first movement into a series of stormy arabesques that drive agitation in the string quartet. Intensity grows, culminating in the instrument leaping across its three-plus-octave range — like a circus acrobat skillfully flying from ring to ring above a lion’s den of growling, tremolo strings.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Symphony № 5, mvmt. I
I was baffled the first time I heard the opening of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth. I was in high school and had only come to know works that started with a jolt of energy, those crowd-pleasing warhorses like Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony, Mozart’s Haffner Symphony. But Tchaikovsky opens the doors of his symphony onto a mystical world in its slow introduction — a three-minute prayer led by two clarinets who, like a pair of Russian Orthodox monks, chant in perfect unison, in their deepest, gravely register.
The entire passage only involves eight pitches. But what at first appears to be musically simple quickly becomes emotionally vast. One phrase — one breath — at a time, the clarinets explore intense melancholy, quiet resignation, and, ultimately, profound peace. Their theme becomes the primary musical material for the entire symphony, but to me, it never sounds more captivating than when the clarinets intone those shadowy opening bars.
Aram Khachaturian, Trio for Clarinet, Violin & Piano, mvmt. I
I clearly have a thing for Eastern European folk music, because the trio for clarinet, violin, and piano by Aram Khachaturian — with its references to the music of the composer’s native Georgia, as well as folk music of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, and others — was always one of my favorite works to perform.
While most composers explore writing for the clarinet late in life, Khachaturian wrote his trio while a student at the Moscow Conservatory, years before penning the ballets and concertos that would earn him international acclaim. The somber mood of the first movement — which Khachaturian notes should be played “with sorrow and great expression” — is clear from the funereal bells of the piano’s opening chords, over which the clarinet and violin alternate between fluid, serpentine melodies and agitated, rhapsodic cadenzas that grow in intensity before suddenly evaporating into silence.
Giacomo Puccini, “E lucevan le stelle”
In Act III of his opera Tosca, Puccini doesn’t just use the clarinet to mimic the human voice — he uses it as a ghostly stand-in for the title character, the most famous opera singer in Rome. It’s in this moment we find the artist Cavadarossi sitting in his jail cell, awaiting execution at dawn, and thinking of his lover, Tosca. As he sits to write her a farewell letter, he looks to the heavens as a silence overtakes the orchestra. Then, the hushed entrance of a single clarinet: The prima donna has entered the room.
I like to think of the clarinet’s melody as one Cavadarossi heard Tosca cooing, perhaps at night, gently into his ear. The scene he evokes, in short, melodic fragments woven through the clarinet’s singing, speaks to just such a nocturnal tryst:
And the stars were shining,
And the earth was scented.
The gate of the garden creaked
And a footstep grazed the sand …
Fragrant, she entered
And fell into my arms.
Michael Cirigliano II is a writer, editor, and content consultant helping classical music presenters use human-centered storytelling to inspire a lifetime of engagement with the arts.
If you liked this story and want to learn how your organization can use meaningful content to demystify classical music and connect your audience to uplifting musical experiences, reach out today: Michael [at] michaelwriteswords [dot] com.