Klarinet Archive - Posting 000075.txt from 1995/03

From: Jonathan Cohler <cohler@-----.NET>
Subj: Re: Weber 2nd
Date: Fri, 3 Mar 1995 00:44:47 -0500

>I am preparing the third movement of Weber's Second Concerto for a
>Young Artist contest. In listening to several recordings of it, I
>have found the tempo to be substantially faster than 100 (as it is
>marked on my edition). Any thoughts on this? Does anybody actually
>play this piece at 100?
>
>Nichelle Crocker
>NCROCKER@-----.edu

Weber did not put metronome markings in the music, so those are marks from
the editor.

One suggestion. Most popular editions of the Weber music came down from
Carl Baermann with @-----. He freely added ornamentation,
dynamics and articulation to Weber's rather sparse scores, based on what he
thought his father (Heinrich) used to do. I guess he figured that since
Weber wrote most of his music for Heinrich that this was OK.

While ornamentation and improvisation are certainly encouraged practices of
that time, I would personally recommend going back to the original score
and adding the ornamentation and improvisation from that point. I think
you (and most clarinetists) would be suprised at just how =different= the
original scores are.

There are Boosey & Hawkes editions edited by Eric Simon published in 1962
(still available) that faithfully went back to the manuscripts (of the two
concertos and the concertino) and reproduced what Weber wrote, as opposed
to what Carl Baermann wrote. Get a copy of this edition if you can.

Or better yet, get your hands on facsimiles of the original manuscripts.

------------------------

Jonathan Cohler
cohler@-----.net