Gotham Early Music Scene

Music Before 1800 presents
Eric Hoeprich, bassett clarinet
and the London Haydn Quartet

Haydn & Mozart: Masters of Invention

Eric Hoeprich

Music Before 1800 presents basset clarinetist Eric Hoeprich and the London Haydn Quartet on Sunday, February 12 at 4:00 p.m. at Corpus Christi Church. They perform “Haydn & Mozart: Masters of Invention.” On the program are Haydn’s string quartets from Op. 20 and Op. 33, and Mozart’s famous Clarinet Quintet, KV 581. In 1782 Haydn announced that his new set of quartets (Op. 33) was composed in an “entirely new and different style.” Indeed, these quartets seem to reinvent the whole genre—in form, the revolutionary use of harmony, and the range of expression. Mozart was the first to add a clarinet to the quartet, enlarging it into a particularly sonorous sounding quintet; this qualifies him to be “a master of invention,” as the concert’s title suggests. Hearing the Clarinet Quintet on original instruments will be an unusual treat.

Eric Hoeprich plays historical clarinets from the Baroque through the late Romantic periods. He performs worldwide, and teaches in Paris, The Hague, and at Indiana University. He collaborates with the members of the London Haydn Quartet with whom he has recorded the Brahms and Mozart clarinet quintets on the Glossa label. The London Haydn Quartet, born out of a passion for Haydn's string quartets, plays at prestigious concert series on both sides of the Atlantic and presents its own series in London. “The real pleasure was in Hoeprich’s flawless technique and molten-gold tone…. The high point was the radiant [Mozart] Clarinet Quintet” Washington Post. ”The London Haydn Quartet ... play[s] on gut strings with classical bows. Articulation is light, precise yet full of nuance; the whole texture shines” BBC Music Magazine.