Dirk Altmann, Kei Shirai, Masato Suzuki & Ludwig Chamber Players - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Stadler Quintet K. 581, Clarinet Concerto K.622

Clarinettist Dirk Altmann plays late works by W. A. Mozart.

The clarinet player uses his instrument as billard cue. This little provocation on the cover indicates what is going on. Its common knowledge that Mozart composed these pieces not long before his death, but for Dirk Altmann (and booklet author Katharina Eickhoff) they are not the creations of an angel on the way to heaven but where written in a very earthly environment a part of which was playing billard with his friend and clarinet player Anton Stadler. What happens when the clarinet concerto is played exempt of romantic, nearly religious enhancement? We hear the inspirations of a joyful genius. Surely you want to know more...

Dirk Altmann is a German musician who has been solo clarinettist with the SWR Symphony Orchestra in Stuttgart for more than 30 years. Altmann is the founding member of the Ludwig Chamber Players and the Stuttgart Winds.