Klarinet Archive - Posting 000127.txt from 1995/12

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: The Mozart Concerto
Date: Wed, 6 Dec 1995 15:35:01 -0500

Janis Brown in Texas began a note on the Mozart concerto with the word
"No." implying that she must have been responding to some previous
note with which she may have been in disagreement. Following that,
Janis then gave a bunch of very valid points on the concerto and the
fact that it was written for a basset clarinet. It is a pleasure to
see how this information, dating from only 1939, has diffused itself
into the clarinet world of today. 60 years ago, no one ever heard of
such a thing and today, people can by them off the shelf.

I am not sure to what Janis was saying "No." to but it may have been
an earlier assertion by someone that the work was begun for the basset
horn. If that is the case, I must take the side of the person who
made that statement for he or she is correct.

Mozart first began what became the clarinet concerto by drafting
a work for basset horn in G and orchestra. The autograph survives
and I have a copy of it. It shows the very same fundamental work
that we know today as the concerto, K. 622 though it is a sketch and
has only an architecture established with hardly any detail.

Somewhere around measure 88, he had to have changed his mind because,
suddenly the pieces switches to concert A major with what was the
basset horn in G now playing in written C major. Then the autograph
breaks off a dozen or so measures later.

>From this fragment, Mozart must have begun again, this time creating
the concerto whose autograph was either lost or sold or pawned by
Stadler (along with the Quintet, K. 581 and possibly a picnic basket)
sometime after that.

The fragmentary work for basset horn in G is of extreme importance
in establishing certain notes for the basset clarinet version, since
it is the only autograph material we have of anything associated with
K. 622.

One other point: Janis is absolutely correct in saying that Stadler had
basset clarinets in both B-flat and A, as demonstrated by several works
for B-flat basset clarinet. But also had one in C, too, although I
know of no literature that calls for the low notes of a C basset
clarinet. From this fact, I conclude that Stadler did not use these
instruments for solo purposes, but for all purposes. That is, when he
showed up to play a regular orchestral gig, he played it on his basset
clarinets.

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