Klarinet Archive - Posting 000353.txt from 1995/05

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Beethoven Harmoniemusik
Date: Fri, 19 May 1995 06:38:28 -0400

Very good note on other Beethoven music for wind octet/nonet. I have
two more to add, both of which I own. One is the Pathetique piano
sonata, an absolutely smashing arrangement, and the other consists of
excerpts from the opera Fidelio, this latter arrangement being published
by Musica Rara is an edition that has several errors in the first movement
that make the overture difficult to get through.

I also own the Beethoven septet in the wind octet version and it is a
killer!

The Fidelio arrangement has movements that are so spectacular that it
is among the best of its breed. The canonical quartet "Mir ist so
wunderbar" is especially remarkable!

Other composers music I also have include Haydn (The Creation and the
Seasons, both for wind nonet), lots and lots of Mozart piano sonatas,
and operas, and many of the minor composers of the era. In some cases
the musical excerpts exist in no other form other than Harmonie. One
such example is music from Giovanni Simone Meyr's opera "Lodoiska,"

Perhaps one of the most amusing such compositions is a work for two
antiphonal wind nonets that sat at the opposite ends of a banquet hall and
first one played and then the other. Periodically there are duets with
instruments from one octet playing with instruments from the other. There
is even a duet for the two contrabassoons. It ends with an 18 part version
of the Austrian National Anthem and it was played at a state dinner the
week before Napoleon invaded Austria.

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