Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Clarinet Quintet, K. 581, was written in 1789 for the clarinetist Anton Stadler. A clarinet quintet is a work for one clarinet and a string quartet. Although originally written for basset clarinet, in contemporary performances it usually is played on a clarinet in A.
It is Mozart's only completed clarinet quintet and is one of the earliest and best-known works that was written especially for the instrument. It remains to this day one of the most admired of the composer's works.
Sometimes the quintet is referred to as the Stadler Quintet; Mozart so described it in a letter of April 1790. Mozart also wrote a trio for clarinet, viola, and piano for Stadler, the so-called Kegelstatt Trio, in 1786. Stadler was a friend to Mozart who was very talented in the instrument.
The composer indicated that the work was finished on 29 September 1789. It received its premiere on 22 December of the same year, in one of the four annual Vienna performances of the Tonkünstler-Societät, an organization that existed to fund pensions for widows and orphans of musicians. The main item on the program was a cantata, Il natale d'Apollo, by Vincenzo Righini; Mozart's work was performed between the two halves of this work. The solo clarinet part was taken by Stadler, the first violin part by Joseph Zistler (1744–1794).
The work consists of the following four movements[3] and, with the intended repetitions, has a duration of between 31 and 38 minutes, usually approximately 35 minutes.
