Klarinet Archive - Posting 000374.txt from 1995/07

From: David Niethamer <niethamer@-----.BITNET>
Subj: Re: British music for the clarinet
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 1995 22:37:47 -0400

On Sun, 30 Jul 1995, CLARK FOBES wrote:

> If memory serves me correctly, these were written when Elgar was a
> young man and worked in the capacity of "music therapist" at an asylum.
> The pieces were written for the patients, so I would assume that pieces
> would be written as he had players. Anyone else read something like
> this? I am going to try to find the reference.

After a trip through my files (always an adventure!), I found my copies
of:
vol IV Harmony Music 5
1 The Mission (I guess John Williams plagarizes more
widely than we realized!!)
2 Menuetto and Trio
3. Noah's Ark
4 Finale

vol V Five Intermezzos
1 "The Farmyard"
2
3 "Nancy"
4
5

vol VI Four Dances
1 Menuetto
2 Gavotte "The Alphonsa"
3 Sarabande
4 Gigue

I presume that Belwin Mills published vols. 1,2 and 3 as well, though I
don't own them.

The parts are edited by Richard McNicol, whose note is excerpted below.

"This performing edition is based on the parts used by John Parr (The
Sheffield instrument collector) during the early 1930's. These parts are
currently housed in the British Museum in London. Inconsistencies of
notation...(etc)

The horn part of the conventional wind quintet is abandoned by Elgar in
favour of a second flute, this being the combination of the 'Waits'
quintet of Elgar's friends for whose pleasure these works were written.
Elgar himself played both bassoon and cello in the ensemble, and specific
cello parts are to be found in several pieces.Harmony Music #3 was left
incomplete, and is published in this edition as a fragment. The Sarabande
of 1879 was used later by Elgar in his uncompleted opera "The Spanish
Lady". Although Elgar left no direction for the specific order of the
1879 dance movements, they can be combined advantageously in performance
with the longer movement of the Harmony Music to form more substantial
and satisfactory works." R. McN., London 1975

Elegantly enjoyable music, at least the ones I know.

David Niethamer