No composer likes to write music without feeling that an artist exists both capable of, and willing to, play it to good advantage. When Carl Maria von Weber met Heinrich Joseph Baermann, one of the greatest clarinetists of the early nineteenth century, he delightedly began writing all sorts of work for him, including several chamber pieces and the two famous clarinet concerti.

In his F-minor Concerto No. 1, it is clear that Weber knew the virtuosity of his player-he makes the soloist range ov...