Klarinet Archive - Posting 000308.txt from 2002/02
From: Daniel Leeson <leeson0@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Mozart + high notes
Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 12:41:28 -0500
How you chose to play that passage is your call and I could not possibly
think of commenting on it. However, I do comment on your rationale
which concludes with a very telling statement; i.e., "... but I feel
that [my suggested approach] works better than ..."
You will NEVER get any serious discussion of such an approach based on
how you feel about it. It is a bankrupt and fundamentally worthless
argument. If you can feel about it one way, someone else can feel about
it in exactly the opposite way, and you are nowhere in terms of
advancing your cause.
The way you win such an argument is by the presentation of evidence that
cannot be disputed, and to attempt to dispute it leaves such a person in
a completely exposed position. For me to have said that Mozart NEVER
used a tone higher than D in any clarinet composition, involved looking
at the manuscript of every work in which he used a clarinet (and for
which the original manuscript still exists), not in published editions.
Works for which there is not manuscript (such as K. 622 and 581) are
excluded from the examination because published editions using the high
G are not authoritative and cannot be used to argue the issue one way or
the other. The Winterthur manuscript cannot be used to counter the
argument because it is not for a clarinet, but rather a basset horn, and
even worse, a basset horn in G.
That is your argument! If Mozart never did something, or if no evidence
can be put forward to suggest that he did that thing, then any violation
of that argument in unMozartean. If he did a thing once, then one can
never argue that another case of that thing is unMozartean.
Such an argument is not conquerable. It may be ignored by people for
whom it is inconvenient, but it still stands and, eventually, succeeds.
In general, any performance argument that is sustained by the assertion
that "it sounds better that way" is automatically suspect, and almost
certainly has a constituency who can argue that "it doesn't sound better
that way."
The recent case of a conversation that Tony Pay and I had on this list
is very illustrative. Tony was playing the Gran Partitta in Bath with
some very fine players. The argument about the elimination of m. 111 in
the 5th movement was decided on by the process of taking a vote; i.e.,
musicologic truth concluded on by democratic process. Those who liked
it better one way voted their view, and vice versa. The serious
argument laying out evidence did not conquer that day. It happens all
the time. But eventually, the votes will stop and that measure will go
away, because the evidence is simply overwhelming, and those who think
differently about how that passage sounds are simply basing their
opinions on how they played it for the last 30 years. And that sir, is
a lousy way to run a railroad.
Dan Leeson
David Glenn wrote:
>
> A while back there was some discussion about Mozart and high notes. Dan
> purported that Mozart never wrote anything for the clarinet higher than
> about a D. Despite the Winterthur manuscript which goes to high E and
> even once up to high F above that for the basset horn in G, I took his
> argument seriously - though it may not have appeared so.
>
> Because of this very reasoning, I am purporting a "daring" change to the
> text of the Mozart concerto:
>
> It has bothered me for as long as I can remember that in the third mvt,
> bars 85 - 92, and especially 88, 89 and even more so bars 91 and 92 it
> screeches up to high G before reaching the high point at the end of the
> phrase so throwing the whole section out of whack. We have no help from
> the Winterthur manuscript as that has only the beginning of the first
> movement. The Allgemeine Musikalischen Zeitung (AmZ) of 1802 mentions
> other passages but not this one and the contemporary arrangement by
> Schwenke takes a similar line also going up to high G.
>
> Nevertheless, I have decided to play the passage as such (this time):
> Bars 84 + 86 remain the same, bars 85 + 87 are descending 16ths C3, A2,
> F#, D, C, A, F#, D, C A, F#, basset D. Bars 88 + 89 down one octave to
> continue the line. Bar 90 remains same. Bars 91 and 92 down one octave.
>
> I admit that bars 85 and 87 I just made up. However, the change is very
> similar (in the other direction) to another passage which the 1802
> arranger butchered for us, namely bars 61 + 62 of this movement (see
> AmZ). I am thereby avoiding the high G and the too early climax. Maybe I
> am replacing the original basset tones as well. I can't know for sure
> but I feel that this works better than our "original" 1802 version.
>
> Does anyone have a better idea?
>
> David
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
--
***************************
** Dan Leeson **
** leeson0@-----.net **
***************************
---------------------------------------------------------------------
