Klarinet Archive - Posting 000669.txt from 2001/01

From: "Michael Bryant" <michael@-----.uk>
Subj: Re: [kl] Gran Partitta and its problems
Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 03:06:58 -0500

Very interesting indeed. Thanks.
But this is just a brief glimpse.

I seem to have a modern edition and
an old edition of K361 for wind octet.
Dan? Would it be worth commenting
further on this version, if there is
something to be said?

Michael Bryant
_________________________

Daniel Leeson wrote on 18 January 2001 21:51 about the Gran Partitta and its
problems

>My dear friends and colleagues on the KLARINET list, it seems to me to
>be a worthwhile piece of information to let you all know what a terrible
>mess the history of the Gran Partitta is (and has been) in for more than
>two centuries. This business of the subtitle is but one example of the
>more than a dozen complex problems having to do with this magnificent
>piece that are, despite the work of some of the best scholars living and
>dead, still unsolved.
>
>I touch on a few points here so that you can understand the complexities
>in trying to deal with the history of this work, of which the subtitle
>is simply a minor detail.
>
>First and most troubling is the fact that we do not know when or for
>what purpose Mozart wrote this work. You will find a lot of speculating
>from me, from Alan Tyson, from Alfred Einstein, from everyone all the
>way back to Ludwig von Koechel, but the fact remains that no one KNOWS.
>I think I do, but a lot of that is ego.
>
>Even if the work was written as a composition of 7 movements OR was
>written as a composition of 4 movements to which were added 3 movements
>later in life has been and continues to be an important piece of its
>history.
>
>Was it conceived of as a work for string quintet when Mozart was 12?
>That is a theory put forward by Koechel himself. I think he was as in
>error as he could have been but the assertion is still part of the
>work's history.
>
>Were its variations originally written as a quartet for flute and string
>is a theory that still floats around. It's nonsense (sez I,) but who
>knows?
>
>Was it written for Mozart's own wedding is still, despite every piece of
>evidence to the contrary, still spoken of by someone as important as
>H.C. Robbins Landon as being true.
>
>Was it originally for wind octet and later transcribed for 13
>instruments?
>
>These are important questions. The subtitle is much less so. And the
>performance issues, the most important of all, are manifold. I remember
>one very pleasant experience I had to play the work under Tony Pay's
>direction with the San Diego Symphony and he and I spent hours talking
>about the puzzling connection to the coda in the fifth movement. So
>there are practical matters involved, too.
>
>The main problem with the history is that there is almost nothing in
>Mozart's lifetime to understand what was on his mind (or what time it
>was) when he conceived and executed this work.
>
>Further, after his death the manuscript was still in his wife's hands
>and she sold it in 1803 at which point it promptly disappeared and
>didn't surface again till after the First World War. To complicate the
>matter further, a set of printed parts appeared in 1801 and it is
>absolutely certain that these parts were not produced from the
>manuscript because they are so awful (and are also the source of the
>1875 B&H parts from which the Broude Brothers parts are taken).
>
>In 1917 the manuscript was bought by an American physician living and
>practicing in Vienna, and when he died his son got it. Mind you, for
>purposes of influencing a printing of the work, the original manuscript
>had never been seen by anyone much less used and would not be until
>1979.
>
>In 1939 or 1940 it was bought by the library of Congress where it sits
>to this day. A facsimile of the manuscript was produced about 20 years
>ago. Einstein was asked to do a critical edition around 1950 but he
>died and the project was abandoned.
>
>Not until the 1960s did anyone realize that every single thing written
>about this piece, to say nothing of the state of printed parts, was
>completely and totally in error. Though what is correct about this
>piece is by no means figured out yet.
>
>To sum it up, it is the most important and influential piece of wind
>music ever written and we are all carrying buckets of wrong information
>about it, how to play it, and what constitutes playing it correctly.
>
>As I said, the subtitle is a minor issue, but even that needs to be
>gotten authoritatively (even if misspelled) considering the importance
>of the work.
>
>When I was asked in 1970 to edit the work for the Neue Mozart Ausgabe, I
>considered myself the luckiest man who ever lived, and I have never
>changed my mind about that. Musically, the editing of all the Mozart
>wind serenades (with Neal Zaslaw of Cornell) is the most important thing
>I ever did in my life, with the exception of fathering my children and
>marrying my wife.
>
>So if I seem rigid in my interpretation of things, let me suggest that
>this piece needs a lot of protection because its history has been so
>badly abused in the past. Most every clarinetist I ever met who played
>this piece is equally protective of it, as should be the case.
>
>--
>***************************
>** Dan Leeson **
>** leeson0@-----.net **
>***************************
>
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