Klarinet Archive - Posting 000216.txt from 1996/11

From: Joerg Peltzer <peltzer@-----.de>
Subj: Re: Articulation in Mozart
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 07:26:23 -0500

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> Von: Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
> An: Multiple recipients of list KLARINET
<KLARINET@-----.DE>
> Betreff: Articulation in Mozart
> Datum: Samstag, 9. November 1996 15:10
>
> > 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!

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Dont forget all those Bassetthorn pieces!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joerg Peltzer Tel. (0451) 70 20 830 - Luebeck, Germany
"Funk is, what you don't play" - Maceo Parker!
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>
> 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)
> ====================================