Klarinet Archive - Posting 001118.txt from 1998/07

From: jvarineau@-----. Varineau)
Subj: Re: [kl] Mozart's choice of instruments
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 01:24:14 -0400

Great reply Dan, but certainly before the advent of equal temperament
keys did have a particular sound. The further into the sharps and flats
you got in other tuning systems the more out of tune, and more "colorful"
things became. Now I realize that Mozart is at least one generation
removed from the advent of equal temperament.

However, I still contend that my statement holds some water. I am in the
midst of a heavy summer concert season, but I know that I can produce
writings contemporary to Mozart that would support this. Writers and
composers of the day made a big deal out of the key of a piece and
normally referred to a piece by the key, so that it wasn't Mozart's 40th,
but rather his g minor symphony. Clara Schumann comes most directly to
mind since I've most recently read a biography of Brahms that quotes her
extensively.

Now a common listener sitting in a concert hall today really doesn't care
what key a symphony is in, except for major and minor. Our lazy ears (I
should say ours without perfect pitch) just cannot distinguish. I
contend that a larger portion of the audiences back then could
distinguish -- and you're right I have no scientific (quantifiable) basis
for this.

One must ask the question, what leads a composer to choose a particular
key for a piece? Does he/she wake up and say -- gee, I think I'll
compose a symphony today, and, let's see, I guess I'll use B-flat.

Finally, part of the color of a key is directly affected by the
instruments that play it. Such that violins in sharp keys, because of
the number of open strings used (in 18th and early nineteenth century
technique) do have a distinctly different sound than flat keys. This is
why I find the tuning so irritating when I conduct the Mozart E-flat horn
concertos. Great for horns -- lousy for violins.

Dan, you are much more widely read than I, but it seems in the reading
that I do this sort of thing leaps off the page to me.

And, it is just as I feared when I started my missive yesterday. I am
really going to get drawn into this, and I don't have time!!

John P. Varineau
Associate Conductor, Grand Rapids Symphony
Conductor, Grand Rapids Youth Symphony
Faculty (adjunct), Calvin College
Conductor, Jubal Brass

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