Klarinet Archive - Posting 000239.txt from 1994/10

From: Dan Leeson
Subj: STADLER - PART 3 (footnotes 15 and 16)
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 1994 10:19:39 -0400

A quintet fragment of 93 measures, K. Anh. 91 (516c), for clarinet in B-flat
and string quartet survives today at the Bibliotheque nationale, Departement de
la Musique, Paris (Signature #262). The note d appears seven times [meaning
the low d: Leeson]. This fragment, previously dated by Alfred Einstein in the
Kochel catalogue as having been composed in the Spring of 1787, has been shown
through paper study by Alan Tyson to have been composed in either 1790 or 1791
(see Tyson, op. cit., pp. 341-342, note 28; and also NMA VIII/19/Abteilung 2,
pp. 41-43). Alan Tyson conjectures that the movement was indeed completed, for
"the music continues to the very end of the bifolium with ties leading over to
a presumed continuation, now lost".

Another Mozart fragment, for clarinet in B-flat and string quartet, K. Anh.
88/581a (102 bars), at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, previously dated by Alfred
Einstein as Sept. 1789, Vienna, is probably dating from 1790, Vienna. It
contains a single e-flat. Mr. Mischa Donat reports that a continuation of the
fragment (21 bars), of the same paper type, is located at Stift Gottweig (see
Alan Tyson, op. cit., p. 341, note 27). Furthermore, Ferrando's aria "Ah lo
veggio, quell'anima bella" from the second act of "Cosi fan tutte", K. 588,
which is featured as a theme in K. Anh. 88 (581a), utilizes in the accompanying
second clarinet (in B-flat) of the autograph score the pitch d a total of seven
times. It is unlikely that K. 581a was considered as a serious work (or as a
draft for the Clarinet Quintet, K. 581, as has been supposed), because of a
section of fifteen bars (b. 55-59) which employs frequent clef changes:
soprano, alto, tenor, bass and treble, where treble would have sufficed for
this chalumeau to clarion register passage (for information on other works for
the basset clarinet, see the master's thesis of Pamela L. Poulin, The Basset
Clariinet of Anton Stadler and its Music, Rochester 1977, available as #13,
1933 from University Microfilms International Selected Theses Program, 300 N.
Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106).

Four basset notes are reported in the November 1790 issue (Nr. XIX) of the
Berlin "Musikalische Korrespondence". Stadler had "improved his instrument
with the addition of some lower notes, so that no longer is the lowest tone e,
but rather the third below this is his lowest tone; he can also take a c-sharp
and a d-sharp in between - and with amazing east!" (see the author's thesis,
op. cit. for additional contemporary references to Stadler's unusual clarinet.)

Footnote 16: Amalie and Friedrich August Leopold Lowe, daughter and son of
theater director and actor, Johann Carl Lowe, were 17 and 18 years old,
respectively, at the time. The family is mentioned in Carl Stiehl, Geschichte
des Theaters in Lubeck, Lubeck 1902, pp. 90-91, 98-99 and 101.

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Part 4 of this posting will continue with Poulins paper at the point
where it left off in Part 2.

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