Klarinet Archive - Posting 000393.txt from 2001/11
From: Daniel Leeson <leeson0@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] The worth of things
Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 19:04:44 -0500
It is interesting that you mentioned Colin because he published a book
about a year ago in which he spoke rather highly of the theory behind
the removal of that measure. He even said nice things about me, or at
least I think he did. You might ask him about the paper in the 1991
Mozart Jahrbuch entitled, "The Gran Partitta's Mystery Measure."
The technical issues are these (and it would be great if you have the
facsimile of the manuscript and not a regular score which will show none
of this):
The manuscript is written in abbreviated form which is exactly why one
does not see this matter in a normal published score. There, what you
see is what the editor thinks Mozart meant. There are only two such
contemporary scores that present the measure excised, one by Roger
Helyer and the other by me. All other scores date from 1875 and are
copies of one another. That's what we all played until 1979.
The manuscript shows the adagio (with two repeats), then the allegretto
which concludes after 63 measures with Mozart wrinting "Da Capo Senza
Repliche" and he writes it four times. Following the last measure of
the written allegretto is the coda. That is to say, the repeat of the
adagio is NOT written out in the manuscript, only in published scores.
So this brings up the question, exactly how does one depart from the
Adagio (on the second time through it) to get to the coda? Exactly
where that exit point is, is hidden which is why no one saw it for 200
years (mostly because the autograph was out of sight until 1917.
For two centuries the practice was to repeat then entire adagio all over
again (and without repeats the second time as Mozart's autograph
indicates) and then leap to the coda following m. 111 (which is really
m. 24 way back in the adagio). Both you and I played it that way many,
many times. It is a serviceable solution to the problem but is it what
Mozart intended?
Over the final measure of the adagio in the manuscript is a large
bracket (and there is one under the final measure too). This is
absolutely and unambiguously a first ending symbol as indicated by the
"1" over the first oboe part, last measure. In fact, that measure for
the oboe contains two stroke stacattos and the number 1. A good photo
of that page is found in the introduction to the Barenreiter volume. I
should know. I put it there.
So that that bracket means first ending is clear. But where is the
second ending? That is the first measure of the coda.
And I want you to look very hard at how each instrument of the measure
BEFORE the first ending symol elides with the first measure of the coda.
The voice leadings are perfect. In fact, they could not be better from
the point of view of proper instrumental writing. The connection is
perfect.
So that, in my opinion, is how one gets to the coda. After the da capo,
one plays the first section (without repeat) and then the second
section, but here one terminates that second section one measure before
the end (m. 110 @-----.
Consider the following also. In the adagio, the pair of measures
preceding both repeats are heard four times during the first
presentation of the adagio. Once in the first section, first time
through. Once in the first section, second time through. Once in the
second section first time through. And once in the second section
second time through. That's 4 times.
With the da capo, you hear that measure pair a fifth time (first and
only time through the first section), and then as you approach it for
what you expect to be the sixth time that that measure pair will be
executed, you get the surprise of being cut short. You hear only the
first measure of the pair and go directly to the coda.
I add that to NOT leave the measure out is erroneous for quite another
reason. If you play that measure pair a sixth time and THEN go to the
coda (as was the way it was done for 200 years), the E-flat in the bass
(which is the first note for the bass in the coda itself) is introduced
prematurely in the second measure of the measure pair. It opens the
kimono too soon, by one measure to be exact.
As for the actual chord change that occurs between the connection as I
suggest it should be done, is simply a dominant 7th to a dominant 7th,
nothing terribly radical (but very strange if you have not done it that
way before). In the c minor piano concerto that 7th to a 7th occurs 4
times in a row and no one is suprised there.
I find the connection breathtaking with the measure excised but that's
only my personal opinion. What it is and what I think it is may be two
different things.
If one argues that the bracket over m. 24 cannot be a first ending
because there is no second ending, that will be a false argument because
he often uses only a first ending for a variety of situations where the
2nd ending is not specified. In fact, it occurs elsewhere in the GP, at
measure 20 of the final variation of the 6th movement. If you look at
the published score you will see a second ending, but there is none in
the manuscript.
There's more, but this enough. Tony, how it sounds is only by virtue of
the common reception to that coda connection. There has never been a
group that accepted the dropping of that measure on first hearing. We
are all old farts in that respect. You just need to see the rationale
behind it with evidence all over the place.
And you are a guy who is convinced by evidence, despite your attempt to
look like a man who makes up his mind on how it sounds. You are just
trying to forget your mathematical background!!
Tony Pay wrote:
>
> On Fri, 09 Nov 2001 13:59:09 -0800, leeson0@-----.net said:
>
> > Now in the UK it could well be 50-50, as Tony suggests, but I am
> > willing to bet bangers and mash that the 50% who don't like the
> > removal of the measure have not spent 30 milliseconds of time
> > examining what the technical issues are. Either they have not been
> > brought to their attention or else they don't want to be bothered
> > seeing that piece any way but how they have been playing it for 30
> > years. At one time those players may have been prepared to do radical
> > things, but today they have become (as most of those my age are) old
> > farts.
>
> Well, OK Dan, recapitulate for me what the technical issues are.
>
> I've looked at the original score, and I understand, I think, the
> argument that Mozart intended was elision of that bar.
>
> But I never found that argument to be a knock-down one. And I have to
> say that one of the voices raised against elision one of the last times
> we played it was the voice of Colin Lawson, who has at least pretensions
> to being a scholar.
>
> It happens that we're playing it the day after tomorrow, including
> Colin.
>
> Convince us.
>
> Tony
> --
> _________ Tony Pay
> |ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
> | |ay Oxford OX2 6RE GMN artist: http://www.gmn.com
> tel/fax 01865 553339
>
> ... Bottomless pit of needs & wants.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
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** Dan Leeson **
** leeson0@-----.net **
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