Klarinet Archive - Posting 000021.txt from 2000/06

From: Daniel Leeson <leeson0@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Mozart K581a
Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2000 14:09:58 -0400

Tony, clearly the entire fragment needs a complete restudy in light of
what we know of basset clarinets today, coupled with the fact that the
editor of that fragment in 1958 may not have correctly understood (or
even seen) the original autograph of that piece. I remember reading
that the great English musicologist, Tovey, once accused Mozart of not
knowing the lower range of the clarinet because, in Tovey's view, he had
put notes in that were too low to be played. And that may have been the
1958 editor's point of view. I must look up where that manuscript is
and see if it is obtainable.

Tony Pay wrote:
>
> On Thu, 01 Jun 2000 09:11:40 -0700, leeson0@-----.net said:
>
> > A diplomatic facsimile of this quintet is found on pp. 50-52 of
> > Barenreither's complete Mozart edition, in the volume dealing with
> > Quintets with winds, VIII/19 Abteilung 2. The fragment is only 89
> > measures long.
>
> I have, in Robbins Landon, The Mozart Compendium p342:
>
> NMA VIII/19 Abteilung 2, ?1790, cl, 2vn, va, vc;
> 110 bars; in draft score: last 21 bars unknown to NMA and Koechel 6.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> What does this mean, have you any idea?
>
> > The volume is one of the earliest of the complete Mozart edition and
> > dates from around 1957 when we did not know much about basset
> > clarinets. It also has the Barenreiter edition of K. 581 in it, too.
> > Looks silly today without any attempt to have the low notes edited in
> > it.
>
> I used to play the quaver arpeggios in the development section beginning
> in first inversion at one stage of my experimentation on the basset;
> ISTR this was a suggestion in the preface to the Eulenberg score by some
> German editor or other. Chris Hogwood then showed me an arrangement for
> piano and strings by Druzetsky (I think), in which
>
> (a) the triplets in the second trio were turned into low quavers
> (showing that he had access to a source containing basset notes --
> because *surely* no-one would eradicate those very characteristic
> triplets without knowledge of a version containing low quavers); but,
> also
>
> (b) not using basset notes *at all* in the first movement quaver
> arpeggios! That is, doing exactly as printed in the standard clarinet
> part, with turnarounds and all.
>
> Since there is no problem in producing the low notes on a piano, this is
> something of a mystery to me. Perhaps he did get rid of the triplets
> himself! But is that at all plausible?
>
> Since then I've mostly played the first arpeggios as written, because
> again, surely, if those arpeggios had been in first inversion, they
> wouldn't have got changed; but I put the low notes in when they are
> needed to complete the sequences and eliminate the turnarounds. But,
> who knows what I'll do next time?
>
> I've forgotten what happens in the last movement -- I should get in
> touch with Chris again. I remember deciding where to put the low notes
> in, but not (now) why.
>
> In the end, of course, I suppose I put them in whenever they work
> musically, because that's all part of the informality of how they
> thought of the precise details of this music at that time anyway.
>
> Tony
> --
> _________ Tony Pay
> |ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
> | |ay Oxford OX2 6RE www.gmn.com/artists/welcome.asp
> tel/fax 01865 553339
>
> ... I don't want to grow up, I won't grow up, you can't make me.
>
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--
***************************
** Dan Leeson **
** leeson0@-----.net **
***************************

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