Klarinet Archive - Posting 000130.txt from 1994/03

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Mozart's work
Date: Tue, 8 Mar 1994 17:28:33 -0500

Concerning's Scott's thoughts and comments on Mozart's works, I simply
do not know what to say, and I do not wish to be disrespectful of either
Scott's contributions or his father (who, according to Scott, provided
him with some of the information he was good enough to transmit to us).

But I cannot let pass statements that are absolutely contrary to fact.
Scott says "Mozart didn't really write the music. ... [H]e sketched the
piece and gave it to his scoring students with notes that said 'do it
this way.' In many instances, the voicings used were entirely up to
the scorer...[lots more]" And from this perspective of Mozart's working
methods, Scott then comes to some conclusions about interpretation and
other things. But I must ask Scott some questions.

Can you please tell me a single case in Mozart's entire lifetime where
this scenario took place? Can you specify a single work by him in which
some scoring student did the thing that you said? Can you name any
such scoring student? Except for the Requiem which was completed
after Mozart's death, there is not one single case - ABSOLUTELY NONE!! -
in which the situation you describe took place. Never. At no time.
Not one work. He almost always did a full score, though there are
about a half dozen exceptions where he did a fragmentary score and then
played the piano part from it. He always did it alone. He always
did the scoring himself and never trusted it to anyone else. I personally
have held in my hands, the full autograph score to more than 100 Mozart
works. At least 400 such autographs exist and the others are either
lost or were destroyed at some time in the past. The 400 or so extant
autographs (with the exception of the Requiem) are completely in Mozart's
own hand from first note last. With the exception of the half-dozen
fragmentary scores, all the scoring was done by Mozart and by him alone.

There is one minor exception: in the creation of the opera Titus, he
did entrust the writing of the secco recitatives to Sussmayr. And in
the autograph of that work, this handwriting difference is clear. But
such a compositional case involves only the writing of a melodic line,
the words to be sung in recitative, and the description of the underlying
chord structure through the use of figured bass. That Sussmayr could
do by himself. No instruments other than keyboard are involved.

As a result of this serious misunderstanding of what Mozart did, and
how he worked, the remainder of your note has, in my mind at least,
diminished credibility. But I want to point out that your further
statement that Mozart "wrote down the piece for a clarinet that is
not used at this time" is equally incredulous. I can go into a
music store anywhere in the world and buy a basset clarinet right off
the shelf (so to speak). It may not be used much, but it is in use
all over the world right now, as we speak.

I can't really address your note any further. It has left me
stunned by its misunderstandings of Mozart's working methods and
the seriously incorrect conclusions that you derived from that
misunderstanding.

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Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
(leeson@-----.edu)
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