Klarinet Archive - Posting 000200.txt from 1999/05

From: Note Staff Unlimited <notestaff@-----.de>
Subj: Re: [kl] Pamela Weston's Mozart
Date: Fri, 7 May 1999 21:13:34 -0400

Tony Pay schrieb:

> OK, Dan, I was lying there in bed, and I thought I might have unduly
> disturbed or excited you, so I got up a bit early to tell you that all
> it is, is that Pamela has based her edition on a contemporary
> arrangement of the concerto for fortepiano and string quartet that she
> has dug up.
>
> The arrangement is by C.F.G. Schwencke (1767 - 1822), and it was
> published between 1799 and 1805 by Boehme.
>
> A lot of it is pretty much unplayable on the period clarinet, and I
> think it's a bit of a disaster all round that it's been published in
> this way, as a *version* of the clarinet concerto, as opposed to being
> published as an interesting arrangement of it. (You might pick up some
> ideas about contemporary embellishments, it's true, but that's all.)
>
> It should make lessons 'interesting', if students turn up with it.
>
> The point for me is that the first part of the first edition is so close
> to the Winterthur fragment that such a fortepiano arrangement doesn't
> really cast doubt on the veracity of the first edition, any more than
> does the version for viola, whereas Pamela seems to think the contrary;
> and the almost routine filling out of long notes and constant trills and
> embellishments in the arrangement, which she incorporates wholesale,
> might have been necessary on the fortepiano, but aren't necessary, or
> indeed idiomatic, on the clarinet.
>
> Anyhow, the purpose of embellishment, as you've said, isn't to *start*
> with something different from what the composer wrote -- and for me it's
> quite clearly that, certainly without any doubt at all in the first part
> of the first movement.
>
> You have to see it, really, diminished 7ths, chromatics and quintuplets
> and all.
>
> But of course, you might have a different opinion of it.
>
> Tony
> --
> _________ Tony Pay
> |ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
> | |ay Oxford OX2 6RE GMN family artist: www.gmn.com
> tel/fax 01865 553339
>
> ... If I save the whales, where do I keep them?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

It's published by Universal. I saw it at the Frankfurt Musikmesse in March
1998 . On the cover, it said "first edition for basset clarinet". I went
right to the nearest person from Universal and told them to remove that since
Schott has had one out since 1974! Indeed, they did remove it. Of course,
first I had a look at it. I could hardly keep my jaw shut. I also wondered if
this wonderful person who researched and wrote such wonderful books on
clarinettists had gone kuckoo... But I bought it as soon as I could get my
mits on it and I'm glad I did.

I found it very useful for a few points here and there. One thing I hadn't
thought of was at the end of the slow movement, third and fourth last bar:
the 16th sextuplets stay the same as the "normal" version but leap down more
than an octave to a low C at the beginning of the next bar.

I was convinced to do this by Bob Adelson's article, "Reading between the
(Ledger) Lines: Performing Mozart's Music for the Basset Clarinet" in
Woodwind Performance, Vol. 10 No. 2, Fall 1997. See Page 159, Example 1.
Example 2 on the next page shows a similar leap in Die Zauberfloete. I was
sold!

And like you say, Tony, it was very useful for the embellishments. But also
for reconsidering the solo line. In fact I even ended up leaving some basset
passages out. (Mvt. I, bar 309, third note to end of bar 310 and Mvt. III,
bars 65 - 68 as compard to the Hacker/Schott version)

As an aside, since Fall 1997 at the latest, the Schwenke version has been
publicly mentioned in the USA - namely in the above mentioned Adelson
article.

Like Tony implies tho, make sure you're sitting down when you look at this
for the first time!

David
David Glenn
notestaff@-----.de
dl_glenn@-----.de

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