Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Concerto pour clarinette et orchestre en la majeur, K 622

Jörg Widmann, clarinette
Deutsches Symphonieorchester Berlin
Peter Ruzicka, direction

Clarinettist/composer Jörg Widmann said in an interview that as a musician you cannot be distanced from the music you are playing. Instead, you have to make it your own. Depending on his own state of mind, for example, or in response to the orchestra, his performances always vary. Remaining faithful to the framework set by the composer, he masterfully achieves this balance between a personal interpretation and faithfulness to the work. Widmann has performed Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto numerous times, always impressed by how the composer, toward the end of his life, made the music apparently sound so simple, notwithstanding the multiple musical layers which are not immediately obvious. Peter Ruzicka, a successful composer as well as conductor, worked for many years as artistic director of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra and, later, of the Hamburg State Opera and the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra. He has conducted performances by the Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, and many other leading ensembles.