Klarinet Archive - Posting 000203.txt from 1996/11

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Articulation in Mozart
Date: Sat, 9 Nov 1996 11:37:43 -0500

> From: MX%"rtenn@-----.87
> Subj: Articulation in Mozart

> With the recent discussion of the difficulty of playing Mozart, I
> have been itching to ask Dan Leeson about where to turn for what is
> known about how these works were articulated.
>
> Although it wouldn't be fair to ask for an exhaustive account of the
> literature, I have to admit that at the moment I don't have access to
> a university library and my German is a little shrecklish, so -- how
> about it, Dan? What distinguishes the better editions of the Mozart
> canon? Has the original instrument movement had any influence on the
> scholarship? -- I have often wondered to what degree the legato
> qualities of the instrument may have changed over the years.
>
> Rafe T.

The two big Mozart works, K. 581 and K. 622 have no autographs to
consult so editors are at liberty to do whatever they want. Most
such editors overedit, and, worse, with no sense of what constituted
Mozart's woodwind articulation styles.

Of the works that exist in Mozart's hand, the Kegelstat trio, the
Gran Partita, the two wind octets, the piano/wind quintet, the
3 piano concerti that use clarinets, etc., the rule is this:

less is more!

Mozart was very sparing in his use of articulation symbols for
rapid passage work. This has been taken to mean that the player
was at liberty to do what s/he wished. The more obvious answer -
that the surface texture of music of that era was more rough than
the later romantic era - is generally ignored. Worse. Lots of
tonguing is avoided both because it is hard to do and because it
sounds less pleasant to the romantic ear than slurred articulations.

Johannes Brahms is the main proponent of long, long, long, uninterrupted
phrases and lots and lots of slurring so as not to jar the ear. Only
in one of the variations of the Brahms quintet is there a lot of
tonguing and contemporary players have taken to executing it as 2 and 2
(which is a very romantic tonguing technique).

In Weber's clarinet works, it is very difficult to find anything but
slurs. Tonguing the instrument was considered a very barbarous
practice, and counter to the beautiful, long, uninterrupted line.

But for Mozart, if one has a choice, it is better to tongue than
to slur in rapid passages, and there are lots of exceptions.

If you want to see the demands that Mozart made of clarinet players,
examine the Gran Partitta, movement 6, variation 3, clarinet 2 beginning
in m. 9. There is a monster passage of blazing 32nd notes that
is completely unarticulated. Nobody believes it. Everybody slurs it.
Very few can tongue it.

Also examine the 2nd clarinet part in the wind sextet version of K. 375,
final movement. An absolute killer, but that is what the man wrote,
and he generally wrote what he wanted to hear.

It is too easy to say (for those works for which we have autographs)
"well, Mozart left out the slurs because he presumed the player would
put them in." It is the same kind of logic that Tchaikowsky used when
he wrote the Mozartiana suite with the monster clarinet solo. And he
thought that what he wrote was very Mozartean. That it was stupid
and unMozartean never ocurred to him because he believed that he was
doing something good. But Tchaikowsky's sense of Mozart was based on
his heart, not his head. He never did a day's worth of research in
his life about 18th century performance practice, and that is not at
all surprising. Neither he nor his contemporaries knew what 18th
century performance practice was, or even that there was such a thing.
It was simply presumed - as it is today - that one was guided by their
emotions, and that my friends is a fast road to hell.

There has recently been a lot of noise in the press about a jazz
pianist doing Mozart concerti (and very beautifully too). But
all the attention has gone to the fact that the player improvises
his cadenzas (which, as you all know, is exactly what I have been
suggesting that players are supposed to do).

But the problem is that this pianist (is it Chuck Corea?) hasn't
the slightest idea of what a Mozartean cadenza is supposed to do.
All he knows is that it is improvised (which he can do till the cows
come home). But matters of length, form, style, substance, purpose,
etc. are matters that he has never studied and knows nothing about.

Well, we'll gravitate there eventually. It takes time.

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