Video Roth String Quartet/Bellison - Mozart Clarinet Quintet (entire)

Recorded in 1936. Simeon Bellison, clarinet
1. Allegro
6:38 2. Larghetto
12:32 3. Menuetto — Trio I — Trio II
19:54 4. Allegretto con Variazioni

From a Gramophone review, August 1937.

Roth String Quartet and Simeon Bellison (clarinet): Quintet in A major, K.581 (Mozart). Columbia LX624-7 (12 in., 245.).

It is one of the few things to the credit of the egregious Anton Stadler, clarinettist and a fine player, that we owe to him Mozart's most lovely Clarinet Quintet in A major, composed in 1789, just as we owe Brahms's works for the instrument to Muhlfeld.
Stadler borrowed from and sponged on Mozart consistently —on the strength of their both being Masons—and Mozart not only freely forgave him but wrote him a concerto and this quintet.

It is a work untroubled by any shadow of the difficulties and sorrows which beset the composer in his last years: and one in which he not only exploits the possibilities of an instrument then comparatively new to their fullest extent, but also triumphantly solves the problems of balance with the string quartet. The clarinet is, by reason of its compelling timbre, the unquestioned leader, but the strings do not merely accompany: they have an independent interest of their own which is never allowed to threaten the supremacy of the wind instrument.

The performance, with Simeon Bellison as a clarinet player of great distinction, is of exquisite quality and style and the recording first rate, except for a very occasional keenness in the tone of the leader and an equally rare swamping of the clarinet when all the strings arc engaged. Each movement is complete on one record, and, as I have indicated, the poor man's choice is LX625.
AR

Simeon Bellison (September 4, 1881 -- May 4, 1953), born in Moscow, was a clarinetist and composer. He became a naturalised American citizen after settling in the US in 1921.

Bellison established an early clarinet choir (including women) in the United States, and was later the first clarinetist of the New York Philharmonic; from an initial eight members, the group's size grew by 1948 to 75 members.