Klarinet Archive - Posting 000330.txt from 1999/05

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: [kl] Winterthur and Weston
Date: Sun, 9 May 1999 23:31:11 -0400

On Fri, 07 May 1999 23:14:23 -0400, arehow@-----.net said:

> RE: the correct writing of the basset clarinet part in the Mozart
> Concerto, Jack Brymer's book* has a figure marked "Transcription of
> the clarinet part of Mozart's K612b (sic, it should be K621b), in the
> Ryshenberg-Stiftung, Winterthur. Originally in Mozart's hand." This
> shows only 199 bars of the development of the first movement, and
> Brymer notes that it was intended for a bassetto in G, although his
> source for this claim is unstated.

If you look at the complete manuscript, it's clear that it's for a
bassetto in G because the orchestral accompaniment is in G.

What's also striking is that this orchestral accompaniment, sketched
here and there under the solo line, *switches to A in the last few bars
of the manuscript*, giving rise to the entrancing idea that we can here
see Mozart change his mind about the instrument.

The solo part is of course written in C throughout.

> Perhaps I missed this on the discussion, but would this not be a
> definitive source for some of the bassett notes, directly in the case
> of this page and by analogy elsewhere?
>
> Robert Howe

Absolutely it would, Robert.

What is even more potent is how similar this sketch is to the first
edition *apart from the basset notes*. There are a couple of slurs that
are different, and a different note in one passage, but compared to
either the viola arrangement or the Schwenke piano arrangement, the two
are *identical* for the duration of the Winterthur manuscript, ie 199
bars. The solo line is through-composed, with intermittent bassline and
some inner passagework added.

I cannot understand why this fragment is not better-known, or taken more
seriously. I see that Dan Leeson says that 'it is very sketchy and
insufficient.'

Well, take a look at it. I suggest that Mark Charette puts it up on the
Sneezy website.

I have to say, with all due deference to Dan, that it isn't sketchy or
insufficient to *me* to have 199 bars of 'my' best concerto in the
composer's handwriting, identical to all intents and purposes apart from
the octave transpositions with the first edition, and certainly in my
view making nonsense of the Universal Edition's claims to serious
scholarship *as a credible version of the clarinet concerto*. (*That*
differs in the first bar of the solo line, and goes well off the rails
several times within the next 20 bars.)

Why? Because this close similarity shows that Mozart's final
manuscript, the source for the 'clarinet' first edition, was almost
identical to the Winterthur fragment as regards the solo line. And this
in turn means that the first edition itself has strong claims to be
trustworthy, *apart from the basset notes*.

Actually, I don't think that the precise details of the basset notes
have a very important effect on the spirit of the work. Where the
basset notes obviously are missing, or where NMA says they're missing,
we put them in. Where it's less obvious what to do, people do one thing
or another, according to what aspect of the music they want to emphasise
in their particular performance.

The more important thing is that it was for an instrument *with that
sort of character*, that is, those three registers.

The number 3, I would say, is important in K622 in all sorts of other
ways. Thea King pointed that out in a programme note about 15 years
ago, and though we never discussed it, the idea has grown and grown in
my view of the work.

For example, it's why Pamela Weston's suggestion of slurring the first
two semiquavers of the last movement over the barline to the first
quaver of the next bar 'because Schwenke does it' is in my view a
further example of her misunderstanding both of how classical phrasing
works and of what is important in K622.

But that can wait till another time.

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE GMN family artist: www.gmn.com
tel/fax 01865 553339

... I was going to procrastinate, but I put it off....

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