Craig Hill with the MBO Classical Quartet | Mozart Clarinet Quintet

28 June 2025, St Stephen’s Anglican Church, Richmond, VIC

Craig Hill, basset horn and basset clarinet; Cameron Jamieson and Meg Cohen, violins; Caroline Henbest, viola; Rosanne Hunt, cello

Craig Hill’s expertise in historical clarinets covers a wide range of periods and types, but in this concert the focus was on the basset members of the family. In the absence of additional basset horns, two of the pieces comprising Mozart’s KV 439b were performed in sensitive arrangements for basset horn with viola and cello. The same forces gave a suave rendition of the Adagio KV 410, in which the artifice of a canon by inversion flowed effortlessly by.

For their string quartet offering the MBO Classical Quartet delved into another less familiar corner of the early quartet repertoire with Franz Xaver Richter’s Quartet, op. 5, no. 1 in C. Richter may have some limitations as a composer, but he also has a very distinctive approach to quartet writing and displays contrapuntal skill after the manner of his teacher Fux. He could hardly have had more persuasive advocates for his cause than the MBO Classical Quartet. The ingenious final Rincontro – a fugue cum sonata form – brought the work to a rousing conclusion.

The rest of the concert was devoted to the basset clarinet, an instrument with a small but glorious repertoire. Despite the extended lower range, its gentler, more mellow tone seems not to have been appreciated in subsequent years – until its welcome recent revival. First we heard one of the fruits of Hill’s decades of research and performing, his very capable completion of the Rondo fragment K Anh 88, for basset clarinet and string quartet. It is a welcome and pleasing addition to the repertoire, and if it is overshadowed by the work which followed, that is a high standard indeed.

The major work was of course Mozart’s [Basset] Clarinet Quintet KV 581. Hill has lived and breathed this work for decades, and is as well-placed as anyone to unravel its original form as written for, and played by, Anton Stadler, from the doctored form in which it survived. There are many versions attempting to do this, mainly by expanding arpeggios and passage work to exploit the greater range compared to a standard clarinet; this “restoration” goes further than most with some flamboyant plunges, but both the rationale and the effect in performance were thoroughly convincing. What this quintet calls for most is a limpid clarity of texture, something helped by appropriate instruments, but equally by sensitive musicianship from wind and string players alike, something we heard in abundance.

Cameron Jamieson | Caroline Henbest | Craig Hill | MBO | Meg Cohen | Melbourne Baroque Orchestra | Mozart | Richter | Rosanne Hunt

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