Klarinet Archive - Posting 000595.txt from 2001/08

From: Daniel Leeson <leeson0@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] bellison and k. 622
Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 18:21:22 -0400

I really feel badly about having given the impression that Bellison did
a poor job on K. 622. The fact of the matter is that he did that
edition at a time when an editor felt that it was his job to do three
things: (1) improve on the original, (2) make lots of changes so as to
give a potential buyer the idea that he was getting something special;
(3) take out as many uses of the tongue as possible because the romantic
approach to Mozart was to have long, uncluttered lines. The fact that
18th century music had a much rougher surface than music from later
periods was simply not known at that juncture of history.

I heard Bellison play when I was a kid, though I don't remember very
much. Jack Kreiselman began his first lesson as a child with Bellison
who told him how to put the instrument together, how to clean it, etc.
Kreiselman always spoke very highly of Bellison. Jack used to spend
hours telling me stories about how Bellison gave him the most basic of
all instructions. He did it only as a favor to Jack's father who was a
violinist in the NYP.

I don't believe that Bellison had anything to do with setting the piece
for B-flat clarinet. He probably had little or no idea that Carl Fisher
intended to print it that way, and he certainly did not do the piano
reduction to place it in B-flat. Probably some Carl Fisher hack did
that. Bellison's entire contribution was to create the solo clarinet
part.

But I was too critical of it. It's awful from today's standpoint but in
those days it was the cat's meow. It was also the very first edition
that I ever used to learn that piece, so I should not have bit the hand
that fed me.

But as an edition to use for contemporary times, it just won't do. The
articulation style alone makes it sound like a Brahms piece. And the
stuff that he adds in "to make it more beautiful" makes me gag. Not
because Bellison did it, but because anyone would have the stones to do
it.

It had only one advantage and even that may have gone away. It cost
$0.85 when I bought my first copy in 1946. I checked and the penciled
price is still there.
--
***************************
** Dan Leeson **
** leeson0@-----.net **
***************************

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