The concerto began as a musical form in the Baroque Period, with composers such as Arcangelo Corelli and Antonio Vivaldi creating concerto grossos, which featured a group of instruments playing against a continuo. Later, the concerto evolved into a single instrument playing in opposition to or in dialogue with the orchestra. The oboe, flute, or trumpet were commonly used as solo instruments during the Baroque period, but Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s time, the clarinet had been introduced into orchestras and was being used as a solo instrument. The clarinet concerto is typically composed of three movements, with the first and third being fast movements and a slow movement in between. The clarinet’s smooth, rich sound makes it a good solo instrument in a conversation with the orchestra, and several composers have written works for it.
When Mozart heard the well-known clarinetist Anton Stadler play, he realized the instrument’s potential and composed a clarinet sonata and a clarinet concerto. The clarinet concerto Mozart is distinguished a dialogue between the solo instrument and the orchestra, which emphasizes the orchestra’s interaction rather than the clarinet’s solo performance. Carl Maria von Weber’s two clarinet concertos, written at the turn of the nineteenth century, demonstrate the clarinet’s range including upward leaps and fast-rising passages.
The clarinet concerto drew the attention of a number of composers in the twentieth century, each of whom took a different approach to the form. Carl Nielsen’s clarinet concerto is written in one movement with four sections that alternate between fast and slow. The work is a restless, unsettled work that ends with a more tranquil slow section, and it takes the form of a struggle between the solo instrument and the orchestra.
The clarinet concerto Aaron Copland, written for jazz clarinetist Benny Goodman and featuring many references to jazz, is one of the most well-known works of the twentieth century. Copland stated that bringing out jazz effects with an orchestra lacking a large percussion section was difficult, so he used the percussion effects of other instruments such as the harp and bass. The clarinet concerto Magnus Lindberg, on the other hand, is a 21st-century example that is written in one movement, contains musical references to other works, and allows the solo clarinetist to demonstrate musical virtuosity.