So maybe Mozart didn’t write his Kegelstatt trio at the bowling alley, but he would have loved the earthy rhythmic power of the popular gumboot dances of South Africa that inspire David Bruce. Stuart Greenbaum depicts the cosmic dance of the northern aurora in a work of shimmering colour, contrasting with the lyrical drama and formal poise of Schumann’s Piano Quartet.

Wolfgang MOZART | Trio in E flat K498 'Kegelstatt' (1786)

David BRUCE | Gumboots (2008) 

Stuart GREENBAUM | Northern Lights (2020)

Robert SCHUMANN | Piano Quartet Op. 47 (1892)

David Griffiths, clarinet; with guest artists David Fung, piano; Kristian Winther, violin; Anna da Silva Chen, violin; Tahlia Petrosian, viola; and Svetlana Bogosavljevic, cello

In the flooded gold-mines of apartheid-era South Africa, workers wore gumboots and chains that they rhythmically stamped and shook to send messages through the darkness. The dances born of this resilience of the human spirit, by turns haunting and visceral, inspired British composer David Bruce’s piece for clarinet quintet. By contrast, Stuart Greenbaum’s Northern Lights looks to the heavens in a duo that captures the restless luminescence of the aurora borealis, ‘a beautiful spectrum of coloured light in dark skies’. 

Viennese Freemasons like Mozart and his clarinettist friend Stadler often visited ‘eating lodges’ for a meal and game of billiards or skittles. Mozart probably didn’t write his Kegelstatt (bowling alley) trio there, but his love of fun and convivial company carries over into this genial music. Schumann was in a far from genial mood in 1842 when he retreated to his study but wrote five chamber music masterworks in quick succession including the supremely well-crafted and songful Piano Quartet. 

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