“I lit the lamps, put the kettle on to boil, and, to counter the noise of the discordant ship’s orchestra, plugged in a tape of Mozart’s clarinet quintet in A—the Amadeus Quartet, with Gervase de Peyer on clarinet.
“First the violins, joined by cello and viola, made a hesitant, exploratory descent into the bass, where they discovered the clarinet, sounding as fresh and wild as the pipes of Pan. In 1789, the clarinet was still a vulgar novelty, and Mozart was breaking new ground by writing such a star part for the instrument. In this piercingly beautiful recording, de Peyer gave every note a liquid, experimental quality, as if sounding out a course through uncharted territory.
“Mozart—just eighteen months older than Captain Van [Captain George Vancouver]—was another figure living on the cusp of the Romantic revolution. Hearing his music framed by all the noises of the boat in a small gale, I found I was listening to the clarinet as the symbol of that unfettered liberty to which Mozart’s late work seems always to be gesturing, pointing the way to Beethoven and beyond.”—Jonathan Raban, Passage to Juneau: A Sea and Its Meanings, 1999