Klarinet Archive - Posting 000189.txt from 1994/10

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: More news on Stadler's basset clarinet
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 1994 13:06:10 -0400

The following is a handout made by Pamela Poulin at a Chicago clarinet
conference unknown to me either by place or date.

"What Stadler's Basset Clarinet Looked Like and the First
Documented Performance of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto:
Discoveries in Riga.

"Withthe recent changes in the former Soviet Union, I was able recently to
travel to Riga, Latvia and permitted access to archives. There I discovered
three concert programs of performances presented by Mozart's friend and
colleague Anton Stadler in February and March, 1794 as part of a five-year
concert tour which took this clarinettist throughout northern Europe and
as far away as St. Petersburg.

"These programs contain information about Stadler and other performers,
specific compositions performed and, for the first time, a detailed engraving
of Stadler's basset clarinet. One such composition is Mozart's clarinet
concerto, the autograph manuscript now lost, composed for Stadler and his
unusual basset clarinet, a clarinet in A, B-flat, or C with extended lower
range to C, an octave below middle C. The Riga concert program on which the
Mozart Clarinet Concert appears is the first source to come to light
documenting Stadler's performance of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto (it is
assumed that his concert in Prague on 16 October 1791 included this work, but
no documentary proof has yet been found). Other hitherto unknown compositions
are included as well, for example, a concerto by F. X. Sussmayr, heretofore
believed never to have been completed and a concerto by Stadler himself
(previously unknown, not appearing with his other compositions listed in the
Hofmeister-Whistling catalogues of the time). All three concerti are here
announced as being composed for Stadler's 'newly invented' clarinet.

"Also included on these particular programs (and not programs of other
clarinettists performing in Riga) are depictions of an unusual clarinet with a
lower extension. A letter by Stadler commissioning a basset clarinet,
which he describes, confirms that this is a representation of Stadler's
basset clarinet (believed lost), provides us with the needed information
as to what Stadler's basset clarinet actually looked like, and may
possibly lead to the identification of basset clarinets surving (probably
mislabelled) in museums and instrument collections today."

END OF QUOTATION

I ought to get the stupidity prize of the year, maybe even the decade.
NOW I remember where I know the name Pamela Poulin. In January, 1991,
there was a big conference in Salzburg to commemorate the death of
Mozart and 100 papers were delivered. Mine was one of them.

It was a madhouse. I noticed
a paper being given by Pamela Poulin, but it was at the same time that
another was being given that interested me more. I don't think my
head was screwed on right. The title of Pamela's paper was:

"A Report on New Information Regarding Stadler's Concert Tour of
Europe and Two Early Examples of the Basset Clarinet."

If anyone is interest I have the paper. I also have a sick stomach
for being 3 years out of synch with reality!!

More on this when I get the picture of the instrument which is
winging its way to Mr. Stupidity of the Century even as he writes
this note.

====================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
(leeson@-----.edu)
(leeson@-----.edu)
(dnl2073@-----.edu)
Any of the above three addresses may be used. Take your pick.
====================================