Serenade C minor K388 arranged for wind quintet by Mordechai Rechtman

The Serenade in C minor is so different from anythng Mozart’s contemporaries would have expected from a such a work that it has stimulated much speculation – usually on the lines of what those who first heard it must have thought of it. Certainly, if it was intended for an outdoor celebration, like the recent Serenade in E flat major, it would have seemed inappropiately sombre. But would Mozart have been so unprofessional as to fail to meet the terms, specific or implied, of a commission? It is true that two flats or three flats were the favourite key signatures for a wind band and, after his serenades in B flat and E flat major, C minor was an obvious alternative. Even so, he didn’t have to write a such predominantly dark-coloured score and at the same time reduce the number of movements to four, cutting out an entertaining feature like the second minuet.

Whatever the circumstances of the composition of the Serenade in C minor, Mozart seems to have set out to prove that the wind band was capable of sustaining a serious symphonic composition. He might have been aiming for a commission for the wind octet recently formed by Joseph II, whose advisor in these matters he had already hoped to impress with his Serenade in E flat. If so, his ambition was misplaced. The imperial wind band was far more likely to welcome opera and ballet arrangements than anything like the Serenade in C minor – a work of such stature that, six years later, the composer could rescore it and convincingly present it as a String Quintet in C minor.

Mozart’s serious intentions are clear from the start as the main theme strides up a fortissimo arpeggio of C minor. A grim image, it immediately provokes poignant comments from oboes and clarinets and informs the whole of the first movement. True, there is a contrastingly lyrical second subject introduced in the relative major by oboe and enchantingly repeated by oboe and horn. But, while the E flat major harmonies prevail to the end of the exposition, legato lines are replaced by percussive horn and bassoon ostinatos and incisive double-dotted rhythms on oboes and clarinets. So, after a short but unsettling development section, it is not at all surprising that the second subject is recalled in C minor and rhythmic truculence intensified by syncopations and sforzandos.

Beautifully scored in E flat major, the Andante is very much more conciliatory in mood and, except in a strangely hesitant passage in the middle, has no doubts or fears to contend with. The Menuetto, on the other hand, is as alien to the serenade tradition as the first movement, not only because of its C minor tonality but also because of its strictly canonic textures, including in the trio section a scholastic but not unappealing canon by inversion. As for the concluding Allegro, a wonderfully inventive series of variations on the theme introduced in C minor by the oboe in the opening bars, it seems even less likely to compromise than the first movement. It is only in the fifth variation, beginning on the two horns, that Mozart admits a major tonality (E flat) and even then he reverts to C minor before finally recalling the theme in a joyous C major.

Mozart was used to hearing arrangements of his music. Many of his operas were arranged for wind band in his lifetime and he had so little objection to the practice that he included a wind version of an extract from The Marriage of Figaro in the last act of Don Giovanni. As for his own arrangement of the Serenade in C minor for string quintet, he could scarcely have conceived    a more radical change of colour and character. He might, on the other hand, have wondered why anyone would want to arrange the same work for wind quintet, since there is not so much difference in sound between the original and the new version as to make it worthwhile. But he couldn’t have known that the wind quintet would one day be an ensemble in urgent search of a repertoire and that more works of his, and of countless other composers, would be pressed into service in this way – not a few of them in arrangements by the Israeli bassoonist    and conductor Mordechai Rechtman.

Perhaps the major problem in writing a wind-quintet arrangement of a work as serious as the Serenade in C minor is that it could lose its characteristically dark colouring. Scored originally for two each of oboes, clarinets, horns and bassoons, in the quintet version it would be deprived not only of the second oboe and second clarinet but also of the second bassoon and second horn which contribute so much to the weight at the bottom of the ensemble. At the same time it would have to make room for a flute at the top. Rechtman has done his work so sensitively, however, that the character of the work survives largely unscathed: the opening bars, for example, though presented by five rather than eight instruments, sound scarcely less serious. In other places the bassoon can stand in for the second horn, or the horn for second bassoon, and the lower register of the clarinet is valuable in this respect too. While the flute is neatly integrated into the texture, it emerges from time to time as a soloist, as when it replaces the oboe on the introduction of the second subject of the first movement.

Although most of the flute solos are provided at the expense of the oboe, the latter instrument is not deprived of its more eloquent moments, as in its often expressive and sometimes elaborate exchanges with the clarinet in the Andante. The Menuetto, with its strictly canonic counterpoint, including a canon by inversion in the trio section, has less to do with individual colouring than texture. The variations that make up the last movement, on the other hand, are designed to make the most of the difference in instrumental character and, although he redistributes the melodic interest, Rechtman adopts the same approach. The oboe introduces the theme, as in the original, but then makes way for the flute in the second variation and the clarinet in the third, the oboe being compensated in the fifth with material Mozart originally awarded to clarinet. The bassoon retains its virtuoso role in the seventh variation and the insertion of a little flute cadenza to lead into the coda is a particularly nice touch on the part of the arranger.

Gerald Larner © 2010