Klarinet Archive - Posting 000321.txt from 1996/10

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Franck Laloe asks about the Gran Partitta
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 1996 13:19:52 -0400

Franck says that he heard that the GP was, at one stage of its composition,
a work of only four movements and that, at a later time, Mozart added three
additional movementsto bring the composition up to its current level.

It is not surprising that Franck says this because this "two stage theory"
is of French origin and Franck is a Frenchman. (Bonjour Franck. Moi,
j'ai habite la France entre 1962 et 1964 et, de temps en temps, je visite
Scherwiller, pres du Strassbourg, l'ancien village des ancestres de ma
femme.)

The two stage theory originated with the great French Mozart scholar Georges
de St. Foix who had played the work as two separte string quintets and
suggested that the original form must have been that way, too. He later
abandoned the theory sometime around 1920 when Einstein suggested that
the layout and architecture of the autograph score (which had just been
seen publicly for the first time since 1803) showed that this could not
have been the case. I won't go into all the technical details but if
Franck wants a specific citation for the history of this part of the
Gran Partitta's story, look in the 1976/77 Mozart Jahrbuch. The two
string quintets are still available in a Peters edition but they hold
no particular place in Mozart scholarship.

Et alors Franck, j'ai achete mon cor de basset a Paris in 1963 chez
Selmer et j'ai habite Ville d'Avray entre Paris et Versaiile.

a toute a l'heure!!

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