Klarinet Archive - Posting 000186.txt from 1995/12

From: Jacqueline G Eastwood <eastwooj@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: The Mozart Concerto
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 1995 18:48:52 -0500

Hi, Dan and everyone else on this thread,

I believe I had previously mentioned the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe urtext
edition which was recently published; all of this information and more
can be corroborated in the introductory pages of this edition, written by
the editors. It's quite fascinating, and for those who can afford to buy
it, very much worth adding to your library. It's published by
Barenreiter. Next time I have a little spare $$, I plan on getting it!

Jacqueline Eastwood
University of Arizona/Arizona Opera Orchestra
eastwooj@-----.edu

On Wed, 6 Dec 1995, Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu wrote:

> 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)
> ====================================
>