S2.E11. Clarinet virtuosity in Kuffner's Clarinet Quintet; the genius of Bach on the cello; Ponchielli's one hit wonder The Dance of the Hours; and playfulness with Mozart Piano Concerto No.26.

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Welcome back to Perfect Pitch with Nick Healy Hutchinson and his fresh approach to the world of classical music. Whether you're an expert or a beginner, old or young, Perfect Pitch has something for everyone.

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There's not a huge amount of any interest I can tell you about the German composer Joseph Kuchner. If you have the misfortune to be born in 1776, you're going to find out soon enough that you're starting at an immediate disadvantage. Once you hear that Beethoven was born at six years previously in the same country. As if the circumstances of his birth timing didn't make things hard enough. The piece of which he now gets most of fame was for a long time attributed to another composer altogether, cardiac from Weber, another of his contemporaries. But this sort of thing was not that unusual. Composers would often borrow scores to copy, study, or just keep them in their collection. So when this one turned up in Weber's possessions, it was reasonably believed to be by him. And it's not difficult to see why. Kruchner's Clarinet contest has all the virtuotic merit and vabers of the same instrument. And we've listened to the final movement of one of his Clarinet contenders in the past. Researcher has now put the record straight. We're going to listen to it in a full. It's in the form of a theme and variations, with only a very brief respite for the solos towards the end before Kuffner moves on to a final flourish. He wrote six of them in all, with five movements in each. The works remained ignored until the beginning of the last century, when they began to receive their rightful recognition as being the most important and profound pieces ever written for the cello. Here are the courante and the cheek, both of them in the style of a Baroque dance from the second suite played by Mieter Maitsky. It's extraordinary how much Bach manages to pack in on one instrument in just a few minutes. Or even a section within it. Step up the Italian composer Amilcale Ponchieri, born in 1834, who is now only remembered for his opera La Gioconda, and more specifically, the ballet scene at the end of Act III, the so-called Dance of the Hours. The music gained wider popularity when it was used in the film Fantasia, where it accompanied a ballet performed by ostriches, elephants, hippopotamuses, and alligators. Give it a minute, I'm sure you'll recognize it. It's light, certainly, but charming too. It's played here by the Philimonian Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy. I'm conscious that I've been playing with quite a lot of Mozart recently, but it's just a phase I'm going through, and I'm going to finish today with a completely lovely finale for a 26 Calicon charter. It's full of Mozart to play for the case. And the further phrase recorder is clearly having a wonderful time with his live performance. If you aren't familiar with his game, you really should look him up on the internet. He was just as comfortable in jazz as he was in classical and accordingly a perfect champion for making classical music more accessible. The popularity of this piece has ebbed and flowed over the years ever since its first performance in 1788, but it's a firm favourite of many. Friedrich Goulda is joined here by the Munich Symphony Orchestra.

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