Album: Fabio di CÀsola, Mozart: Clarinet Concerto (Sony Classical)

Written late in his short life, the Clarinet Concerto in A major was Mozart's last purely instrumental piece, and one of his most beautiful, a work whose delicate melodic charm is matched by the rigorous restraint of the clarinet part, in which excessive ornamentation is eschewed in favour of a nimble, lyrical grace.

Fabio Di Càsola manages to convey, in the gorgeous 2nd movement Adagio, something of the character of the lower-register basset clarinet for which the concerto was apparently written. This characteristic it shares with the two supporting pieces featured here, the Sinfonia No 31 and Sinfonia Concertante for four winds and orchestra, both posthumously attributed to Mozart.

DOWNLOAD THIS Clarinet Concerto in A major