Klarinet Archive - Posting 000310.txt from 2002/02

From: notestaff@-----.de (David Glenn)
Subj: Re: [kl] Mozart + high notes
Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 15:43:37 -0500

Daniel Leeson wrote:

> 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:

++++++++++++++++++++++++

Dan,

Because I have been persuaded by your high note argument I wanted to change
this passage. Thank you for supplying this hardfast evidence! However, there
is no evidence as to exactly how to change the passage. Therefor I am reduced
to feeling OK about it - or not. But don't worry. I don't consider myself a
"free agent" yet! And it never occured to me to let the orchestra vote on this
;-)

Best regards,

David

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