Clarinet Quintet in A major op. 146-With his Clarinet quintet begun in 1915 Reger was remembering his role models Mozart and Brahms whose works in this genre he particularly admired. This melancholic quintet that is worked through in a strictlymotivic way was to be Reger’s last opus.Shortly after he had sent it to his publisher he died of heart attack in May 1916. The quintet was to become his swan song first performed at a memorial for the composer on6 November 1916. Almost one hundred years later we are now publishing it for the first time in an Urtext edition edited by the Reger scholar Michael Kube.

Ever since Mozart encountered the Clarinet in Mannheim in 1778 he loved the instrument?s warm and expressive tone. His friendship with Anton Stadler the clarinetist in the Royal-Imperial Court Orchestra in Vienna prompted him to compose not only the Clarinet Concerto (K. 622) but also this ?Quintet of Quintets? which was written two years before his death. Like almost all his works for the Clarinet this Quintet wasprobably intended originally for the Basset Clarinet. However it survives only in two posthumous prints both of which call for a standard Clarinet. These prints form the basis of our edition. As an added bonus the appendixcontains a fragmentary Allegro in Bb major for the same combination of instruments.

With the publication of the masterpieces K. 593 and 614 all of Mozart’s string quintets are now available in Henle Urtext. Our edition corrects several widespread misreadings of the musical text and also draws on the firstprintings as important sources. The first printing of the Finale from the Quintet in D major K. 593 diverges greatly from the autograph. The editors consider it probable that the print version was authorized which is the reasonwhy we have published both versions of the movement (to enable a better comparison it is given as an ossia version above the musical text). In the Preface and Comments the editors shed light on the source situation to these twoimmortal works written in the last two years of Mozart’s life.

Small format score of this work by Max Bruch edited by Michael Kube with a forword by Christopher Fifield. Max Bruch's String Quintet In E flat major.