Surviving Mozart ~ Barely

 In recent years I have come to enjoy listening to the Mozart “Clarinet Quintet in A, K 581.” I appreciate the finesse and musicality of the performers, the contrasting moods of the several movements, the tight-knit construction of the piece and its overall charm.  It is, after all, by Mozart ~ one of his superb mature works. But it was not always so. For many years I cringed whenever it came on the radio and even avoided attending concerts on which it was programmed.  Why did I feel such antipathy to this outstanding example of the chamber music repertoire? Let me tell you a cautionary tale.

Back when I was still a performing member of the Lancaster Musical Arts Society ~ it must have been in the mid- to late 1980s ~ a well-known Lancaster violist called me with a request.  A clarinetist in the organization, wanting to fulfill a lifetime dream of performing the Mozart Quintet, had asked the string quartet which she led to play with him on a Musical Arts program the following spring.  Unfortunately, their first violinist would be out of town on the chosen date. Would I be their sub? Learning a major new work at that particular time was not something I was eager to do, but she had baled me out a couple of times when I needed a viola on short notice, so I said Yes.

She sent me the music, and we got together one evening a few weeks before Christmas for an initial read-through. It was rough, but promising. We were each able to note the spots where we needed to do intensive individual practice. The violist was traveling to New Zealand to visit family for the holidays, so we agreed on a next rehearsal date for the week after she was to return in early January.

The phone call came one evening just before New Year’s Eve. Our violist had suffered a heart attack and was in hospital in New Zealand.  The doctors thought she might be able to travel home in two or three weeks. We would choose a new rehearsal date after she had returned.

The second phone call, in mid-January, brought more bad news. Our clarinetist had fallen on ice while cleaning off his steps and sidewalk after the latest storm. X-rays showed he had two cracked ribs. He wouldn’t be playing for at least three weeks.

At last we gathered in February for a second rehearsal.  The clarinetist’s ribs were still sore, but he could play without enduring severe pain.  Our violist was determined to perform but didn’t think she had the energy to get through the entire quintet. She had therefore invited one of her top students to learn the first two movements. There would be a brief pause in the middle for the student to step out and her teacher to take her place for the finale. We hadn’t yet achieved a satisfactory sense of ensemble, but the concert was not until April.  There was still time.

We managed one more uneventful rehearsal. Then several weeks later we were gathered again in the violist’s living room.  Things were coming together, though there were still a few rough spots. Near the end of the practice, we discussed the remaining schedule and logistics. Someone mentioned that we should plan to be at the Historical Society building by 6:30 to tune and warm up a bit before a lot of people arrived. At this the ‘cellist spoke up. Wait a minute ~ isn’t this a Sunday afternoon concert in March? No…it’s a Wednesday evening concert in April. Oh, I’ll be in Florida with my daughter by then.

Maybe we should bow out right now.  Clearly this performance, like Joe Btfsplk in the L’il Abner comic strip of old, is laboring under a dark cloud of perpetual jinx. But no, our violist is nothing if not well-connected in the Lancaster Music community. Soon she has persuaded a ‘cellist from Millersville to join us in the endeavor.  We managed two rehearsals with this final configuration of strings. Ready or not, concert date was upon us.

Somehow we got through it. We didn’t completely fall apart at any point, and there were a few brief moments when we were actually making music, not just playing notes. The applause at the end was a tad more than polite, though certainly not overwhelming.  Our instrument cases were on tables in the library on the opposite side of the large entryway from the concert hall. I put my violin in her case, donned my coat, and slipped out the door to the parking lot while the final number was still in progress. I knew my friends in the audience would offer congratulations if they saw me at the reception afterwards, and I simply could not face that.

And that is how I survived Mozart ~ barely. Never before had I been in such a star-crossed and nerve wracking ensemble, and fortunately, I have never had to face such a train wreck again. Or perhaps it was that the experience itself gave me more confidence to confront and overcome other pending musical disasters. And I have grown to love the Mozart Quintet. As the Bard of Avon wrote, “All’s well that ends well.”