Klarinet Archive - Posting 001167.txt from 1998/07

From: jvarineau@-----. Varineau)
Subj: Re: [kl] Mozart's choice of instruments
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 01:25:03 -0400

Bill

I enjoyed reading your response. A leading natural horn player lives in
my city. I will be contacting him regarding several issues. I know that
there were multiple crooks for natural horns, making their portability
about equal to that of the clarinet. I was puzzled by Dan Leeson's
comment that " the piece generally wound up in E-flat because that was
the best tuning crook for horns." I mentioned this to our principal horn
who then proceeded to rattle off multiple horn pieces written for natural
horn in keys other than E-flat, e.g. the Beethoven sonata op. 17 in F
major. This is was I'm going to check with the natural hornist. I won't
be surprised if Dan is correct, but it would be a curious phenomenon that
the longer or shorter crook so dramatically changed the acoustic
properties of a natural horn.

By the way, as late as 1865 Brahms wrote the Horn Trio op. 40 for natural
horn in the key of --- E-flat!!! But he also used natural horn in his
symphonies -- those gorgeous horns solos in the slow movements on horns
in D and E-natural.

My point in initiating this was that there are composers who have
subjective reactions to certain keys. I contend that there were many
people who also had those subjective reactions -- sometimes in agreement
with the composer, sometimes not. I also contend that today's audiences
care less about those subjective reactions, and because of this, part of
the original meaning of a composition is lost on today's audience. I
contend that one of the reasons for the development section in sonata
allegro form, along with developing tonal tension, is for the composer to
explore what happens to a theme or motive when it is presented in
different keys, which produce for him/her differing emotional reactions.
This may explain the "heavenly" length of some of Schubert's chamber
compositions, where he seems to give every key a try. And some of those
devastating climaxes in Mahler -- away from the home key.

But what I was not trying to say was that there are universal, objective
reactions to keys.

Yikes. As Pascal (I think) said. "Sorry for the long letter -- I didn't
have time to write a short one!

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

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