Carl Maria von Weber Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber (5 June 1826) was a German composer, conductor, virtuoso pianist, guitarist, and Music criticism, critic in the early Romantic music, Romantic period. Best known for List of operas by Carl Maria von Weber, h ...

wrote his Concertino for Clarinet in

E-flat major E-flat major is a major scale based on E, consisting of the pitches E, F, G, A, B, C, and D. Its key signature has three flats. Its relative minor is C minor, and its parallel minor is E minor, (or enharmonically D minor). The E-fla ...

, Op. 26, J. 109, for clarinettist Heinrich Bärmann in 1811. Weber wrote the work in three days between March 29 and April 3. Bärmann learned the work over the next three days and the command performance, for which King Maximilian I of Bavaria purchased 50 tickets, took place on the evening of April 5.

Structure

The concertino unfolds in one movement. The form is

theme Theme or themes may refer to: * Theme (Byzantine district), an administrative district in the Byzantine Empire governed by a Strategos * Theme (computing), a custom graphical appearance for certain software. * Theme (linguistics), topic * Theme ( ...

and

variations Variation or Variations may refer to: Science and mathematics * Variation (astronomy), any perturbation of the mean motion or orbit of a planet or satellite, particularly of the moon * Genetic variation, the difference in DNA among individual ...

. The piece begins with a slow introduction in

C minor C minor is a minor scale based on C, consisting of the pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. Its key signature consists of three flats. Its relative major is E major and its parallel major is C major. The C natural minor scale is: Cha ...

. The E-flat major theme is sixteen bars in length. The next section is marked . In some editions, what follows is "Variation I", though it could be argued that the previous section is actually the first variation. In any event, the so-called Variation I presents variations of the theme in

triplets A multiple birth is the culmination of a multiple pregnancy, wherein the mother gives birth to two or more babies. A term most applicable to vertebrate species, multiple births occur in most kinds of mammals, with varying frequencies. Such births ...

. Variation II is marked and presents

sixteenth note Figure 1. A 16th note with stem facing up, a 16th note with stem facing down, and a 16th rest. Figure 2. Four 16th notes beamed together. In music, a 1/16, sixteenth note ( American) or semiquaver (British) is a note played for half the d ...

s. The following variation is slow and in the parallel minor. The next variation is in 6/8 time. The piece concludes with a section marked .

References

Sources *

External links

* {{Authority control Clarinet concertino 1811 compositions Weber clarinet Weber concertino Compositions in E-flat major