Klarinet Archive - Posting 000318.txt from 2002/02

From: Daniel Leeson <leeson0@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Mozart Gran Partittttta bar
Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 18:16:17 -0500

Tony Pay in speaking about a performance with Colin Lawson said, "It's
certainly true that Colin Lawson wanted to say that he 'didn't believe'
that that was what Mozart wanted."

I think that Lawson is a solid thinker, and perhaps if I understood his
objections, I could be persuaded to turn around in mid air. But all I
have heard was that he was not persuaded. OK. I'll bite. What are the
precise elements of his being unpersuaded? Is the logic presented
unreal or faulty? Are the facts as presented incorrect? Is the
evidence imprecise? What is technically wrong with the presentation of
the story?

But what I think it will come down to is that Colin likes it the other
way better. And as I have said, that argument is bankrupt. He would
have to supply a far more objective reason than that because I can
supply people who say that the other way is worse. And having arrived
at that point, we are nowhere. Nothing has been resolved and nothing
has been moved forward.

Of course, Tony is correct to say that ultimately, the performer makes
the decision. I'm not arguing that, only that the rationale behind that
decision has to have reason, reality, evidence, and thought behind it.
Simply liking it one way more than another way presents none of these
things, only a reminiscence of the last incorrect performance.

By the way, the same thing is true in the case of the piano concerto K.
449, but we clarinets don't play in that so the problem is not current
to us. But the issue is identical. A measure in the first movement was
dropped by the editor. Lots of players refused to drop it. They didn't
like it and they based their opinion on that. But when the autograph
was located in Poland after the discovery of the ones that got lost in
WW2, the measure was NOT there. Strangely, those who refused to drop
the measure before the absolute proof of Mozart's intentions was
offered, continued in their obstinacy even after presentation of
irrefutable evidence.

Some days, nothing works. And taste is no way to deal with
authenticity.
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** Dan Leeson **
** leeson0@-----.net **
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