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As far as timbre is concerned, period clarinets, bassoons and oboes have a
sonority that is quite as heterogeneous as that of the horn. The horn player
must insert his hand in the instrument in order to produce all the notes of
the scale, but the consequence of this is a difference between “open” and
“stopped” notes.
This absence of overall homogeneity is used by the composer here in a
particularly lucid and ingenious fashion. The diversity of sonorities becomes
a means of adding harmonic and melodic colour to the musical discourse;
it allows the composer to achieve an articulation, comparable to that of
speech, and, by extension, of song, between open and closed vowels. As
soon as one plays musical phrases on these instruments, the alternation of
different sonoritiesmanifests its own logic and reveals a type of phrasing that
comes naturally to the instruments, in the writing of a composer who made
contrast one of the foundations of his musical dramaturgy.
Seen in this light, the technique of playing 18th century instruments,
although it is different from and more demanding than that required for
the Romantic repertoire, need not appear more archaic; it corresponds
to another aesthetic. In conformity with the concept of the time, which is
particularly prevalent in Mozart’s music, the instrument seeks to imitate the
human voice, to compete with it and strike up a dialogue with it, just as solo
obbligato instruments accompany and compete with the singer in opera and
concert arias. Wind instruments are close to the voice by their very nature,
which requires the use of the breath. Timbre and articulation here emphasise
the humanity and the individuality of the instrument in the quest, common
to voice and instrument, for a sublimation of sonority.
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