Klarinet Archive - Posting 000654.txt from 1996/04

From: Nick Shackleton <njs5%cam.ac.uk@-----.BITNET>
Subj: Re: Fred Jacobowitz's suggestion about K. 622
Date: Tue, 23 Apr 1996 16:25:25 -0400

Yes..BUT (a) the first printed edition (or if you prefer, arrangement for
non-basset clarinet) was not created out of thin air and probably not out of
memory so than at least someboody in the publishers had access to a score
and/or some parts and (b) the guy who reviewed the publication seemingly had
access to a score and/or the basset solo part when he wrote his review.
Seems unlikely that Stadler loaned his set to the one and then the other...
>Fred offers his view that there probably never was a score of
>K. 622, just parts. Not likely, Fred. The standard mechanism
>of late 18th century composition (and one which Mozart followed
>to a "t") was that the composer produced an original manuscript
>score (called "the autograph") that was then sent to a copyist
>(Mozart's wife's father was a professional copyist) who produced
>a set of performance parts. Both were the property of the composer
>who received everything back from the copyist.
>
>Now Fred is correct that, at this point, the score was no longer
>necessary, and orchestras did play the work with the concertmaster
>leading the group. But all compositions started with the autograph
>score and not a single case exists in Mozart's entire output in
>which the work was created without one. So an autograph of K. 622
>did exist. It was complete (or else the copyist could not have
>produced parts), and it was lost through a mechanism that is not
>entirely clear though there are several different and contradictory
>stories about what happened to it. (One exception: when Mozart
>produced a piano concerto that he was writing for himself, he often
>did not put the piano part in the autograph score. He sort of
>faked it during the performance. The c minor piano concerto,
>K. 491 has a very sketchy piano part.)
>
>When a work was commissioned for a fee (which is certainly the
>case for K. 622), the performance parts and the autograph score
>became the property of the commissioner. So the score and parts
>went out of Mozart's hands and into Stadler's. Konstanze never
>had the score, and this is more than just speculation.
>
>In 1799 she sold every autograph then in her possession. A catalog
>of the sale was made by the purchaser, Johann Anton Andre, president
>of a music publishing firm in Offenbach near Frankfurt. I have
>a copy of that catalog and the clarinet concerto is not listed.
>
>This description is the way things went normally and there is no
>reason to believe that K. 622 behaved abnormally. Stadler comissioned
>it and he owned it. But the idiot then went and lost it, either
>by accident or deliberately through a sale. It is almost inconceivable
>to think that it might still exist someplace. But stranger things
>have happened, too.
>
>
>====================================
>Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
>(leeson@-----.edu)
>====================================
>
>