Klarinet Archive - Posting 000645.txt from 1998/07

From: "Edwin V. Lacy" <el2@-----.edu>
Subj: [kl] Re: Mozart's woodwind concertos (was Brahms cl works)
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 02:10:28 -0400

On Mon, 20 Jul 1998 EbKlarinet@-----.com wrote:

> Just compare the Mozart bassoon concerto, K. 191, an early work, with
> the clarinet concerto, K. 622, a very late work, and you'll see what I
> mean.

I know both of these works quite well, and have studied them in some
detail. I have played the bassoon concerto a half dozen times or so.
Nevertheless, I'm not sure that I can see what you mean. Certainly, the
bassoon concerto is an earlier work. Mozart was 18 when he wrote it, but
for Mozart, who had already been a composer for a dozen years or so, that
doesn't represent the work of an inexperienced composer. The thing I was
always taught by my musicology professors that unlike many composers, even
though Mozart might have been going through good times or bad times,
financial exigency or relative affluence, good health or sickness, grief
or joy, none of this really comes through in his music. I am aware that
there is a justly famous musicological study of Mozart by two French
musicologists, Wyzewa and St. Foix, as I recall, in which the authors
identify more than 30 style periods in the output of Mozart! A rather
remarkable thing, I think, for a composer who lived slightly less than 35
years.

But, even in a youthful work such as the bassoon concerto, there is ample
evidence of genius. I find the clarinet and bassoon concertos to be very
different in musical content, and perhaps in musical intent, but I don't
think either of them is inferior in any way. Do you?

Ed Lacy
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Dr. Edwin Lacy University of Evansville
Professor of Music 1800 Lincoln Avenue
Evansville, IN 47722
el2@-----.edu (812)479-2754
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