Clarinet Concerto No. 2 (Weber) - Third Movement

Third Movement

Considered staple clarinet repertoire, the 3rd movement in Eb major is an exhibition of technique and style on the part of the soloist. The Polacca is a slow ballroom dance, yet some soloists choose to take the movement at a far faster speed than what is traditional or intended for the true pollaca dance; nonetheless, many soloists dedicated to the text choose to take the movement at the danceable speed of a traditional polacca. Once again, Weber regularly used rather large leaps to embellish the clarinet melody which is usually made up of semiquavers (16th notes). The melody is often dotted and syncopated to give a somewhat cheeky feel to the work. There is a 2 bar fragment of the melody (bb 19-20) which is regarded as one of the hardest fragments for clarinet repertoire because of the clarinet playing without orchestra with very fast leaps, all slurred. The work sits very comfortably in Eb major until Weber uses a series of diminished chords to send the work into D major. However, this is short lived as the work comes back to F major with the original melody being stated again with elements of F# major entering. The work finishes with one of the most glittery, virtuosic passages in the clarinet repertoire marked "brillante". Made up of largely arpeggios and scalic runs in sextuplet semiquavers, it is a very fitting end to one of Weber's greatest works.