Klarinet Archive - Posting 000740.txt from 2000/03

From: Jonathan Cohler <cohler@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Wagner
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 08:16:25 -0500

It's amazing how long the mis-information on this piece has persisted and
been passed along. I remember seeing a performance of this work with
Harold Wright about fifteen years ago, which was already a good fifty years
after it was known that the work is by Heinrich Joseph B@-----. Here are
the program notes from my recording "Cohler on Clarinet" (Ongaku 024-101 -
http://www.ongaku-records.com/ ). I hope these are helpful:

----------------
Jonathan Cohler

Adagio from Quintet in No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 23 (1820-1821)
----------------------------------------------------------------
This piece has been a victim of musicological negligence for more than 160
years! B=E4rmann was the famous clarinetist for whom Weber wrote most of hi=
s
clarinet music. Unfortunately for B=E4rmann, Weber wrote his last clarinet
piece in 1816 (the Grand Duo Concertant on this recording), and B=E4rmann
still needed fresh pieces for his concerts. This Adagio is the slow
movement from one of three clarinet quintets for clarinet and string
quartet that B@-----.

Shortly after B=E4rmann's death, the music to this piece seems to have
disappeared. In 1926, the slow movement was discovered, but the copy had
no name on it. For some strange reason, musicologists and the publishers
decided to attribute this work to Richard Wagner, one of the later great
Romantic composers. If you are willing to forget that it sounds nothing
like Wagner, and that Wagner wrote no solo works for the clarinet, then
this attribution might be reasonable. Otherwise, it is quite a leap of
faith.

Interestingly, in the earlier part of this century, some musicologists
discovered the error, but the attribution continued until as recently as
ten or fifteen years ago. Fortunately, the entire quintet has been
properly rediscovered and it is published by Musica Rara.

At 4:37 AM -0500 3/24/0, Roger Shilcock wrote:
>This could be because it's not by Wagner. It's by one of the Baermanns -
>Heinrich, I think - and comes from a chamber music piece; I don't have any
>sources of info. to hand, but I think it's (before rearrangement!) the
>second movement of a clarinet quartet.
>Roger S
>
>
>On Thu, 23 Mar 2000, bob and deborah shaw wrote:
>
>> Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 16:46:59 -0600
>> From: bob and deborah shaw <theshaws@-----.com>
>> Reply-To: klarinet@-----.org
>> To: Klarinet <klarinet@-----.org>
>> Subject: [kl] Wagner
>>
>> I have fallen in love with the Wagner Adagio and decided to do some
>> research on the piece. So far I have found tons of info on Wagner's
>> operas, but cannot find anything on the the Adagio for clarinet. Can
>> anyone steer me in the right direction. Do you know of sources where I
>> can find info on this piece of music? Thanks so much,
>>
>> Deborah
>>
>>
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>>
>
>
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