Klarinet Archive - Posting 000207.txt from 1996/11

From: R Tennenbaum <rtenn@-----.COM>
Subj: Re: Articulation in Mozart
Date: Sat, 9 Nov 1996 16:08:49 -0500

Many thanks for this thoughtful post, Dan. You have provided a great
deal to reflect on.

I am sorry to admit that I don't know the Gran Partitta -- I know how
highly you think of this piece. Can you recommend an edition?

>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.

Hmm, okay, I'll bite. Is Mr. Leeson suggesting therefore that Mozart
*occasionally* wrote something he may *not* have intended?

>(is it Chuck Corea?)

I wonder, maybe someone will let us know. I always rather liked his
catholic taste, though I never particularly cared for his playing.

Rafe T.

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

   
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