Bernhard Henrik Crusell (1775-1838)
Clarinet Concertos

The Finnish composer Bemhard Henrik Crusell was born in Uusikaupunki, the Swedish Nystad, in October 1775, the son of a bookbinder, Jakob Crusell. His musical abilities were early recognised and he had his training, from the age of eight, as a pupil of a regimental clarinettist, Westerberg. He won the patronage of a certain Lieutenant Lorenz Armfelt, who in 1788 opened for him the possibility of a career as an army musician. With the encouragement of Major Olof von Wallensterna at Sveaborg he was able to join the regimental band of the Queen Mother's Life Guards, moving to Stockholm in 1791 and, before he was yet seventeen, assuming the direction of the band. In Stockholm in 1793 he was recruited as first clarinettist into the Hovkapellet by the Court Kapellmeister Georg Joseph Vogler, the Abbé Vogler, who owed much to Mannheim and had entered the service of the Swedish King Gustavus A