Clarinet Concerto

Franz Krommer — František Kramář, born in Moravia in 1759 — spent his working life in Vienna and ended it as court composer to the Habsburgs, leaving a large body of wind music at a time when clarinet playing was expanding fast. His clarinet concertos were written for the players of the Viennese theatre and court orchestras, the best known being the one in E flat major, op. 36; two further concertos, opp. 35 and 91, are for a pair of clarinets. The solo writing stays close to the instrument's own idiom rather than transferring violin figuration onto it.