Ulvi Yurtsever wrote:

>Also, the string quintets don't get a lot of air time for the same
>reason, and these (together with K563) are by far the greatest
>chamber music Mozart wrote.

As much as I like all Mozart's chamber music, my top preferences are the
clarinet quintet and the quintet for piano and winds.  This might have
something to do with the fact that I have a clarinet and piano in my house.
More likely, I just love the endless stream of melodic invention and the
variety of these two works.  Mozart supposedly thought his piano quintet
was "perfect"; I won't argue with that assessment.

There are many excellent recordings of the clarinet quintet.  Among them,
and not too well known, are superb interpretations by Sabine Meyer on Denon
and Manasse on XLNT.  The discography for the quintet for piano and winds
is not nearly as worthy(imho), but you can't go wrong with Perahia on Sony
which is coupled with the masterful Beethoven quintet for piano and winds.

Don Satz
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