Klarinet Archive - Posting 000124.txt from 2002/03

From: "Michael Bryant" <michael@-----.uk>
Subj: Re: [kl] Netherlands Wind Ensemble
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2002 09:45:26 -0500

Apologies for this long post

This is a very exhausting work to play . My parts came from the Beethoven
Archive in Bonn and needed some repair. I have heard that it has been
published, but do not know the name of the publisher. The NWE
added some percussion. The 7th Symphony in the "composer's
version" was recorded by Belgian RT in 1984 for the Accent label,
ACC48434, on period instruments by a group called Octophoros.
The clarinettists (C essential and B flat) were Hans Rudolf Stalder
and Elmar Schmid. Here are the notes with that CD:

The transcription is in general a subject, which in this day and age (a
prolific time for transcriptions) an author can only struggle against in
vain ; but at least one can rightfully demand that the publisher declares
the fact on the title-page, so that the reputation of the author is not
diminished and the public is not deceived.

With these words Beethoven angrily took to the field against the
unauthorised arrangements of his works (Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung
3.11.1802).

There was as yet no author's copyright, but on the other hand, in the days
before modern methods of reproduction, arrangements were a necessity for the
dissemination of compositions. When not everyone could afford a full
orchestra, versions of orchestral works for piano solo, piano duet and piano
trio were in great demand.

In the Vienna of Joseph II this was certainly not the only reason for music
being rewritten. Vienna was the capital of the greatest European kingdom,
and it enjoyed this status in the eyes ofthe whole world. Schiller described
the city as a place in which every day was Sunday and where the spit turned
constantly over the fire. Its inhabitants were obsessed with theatre, opera
and music, provided that nothing made any great demands on the intellect.
Every prince wished to have musicians at his disposal as long as funds
allowed. At the royal court as well as at the Liechtensteins,
Schwarzenbergs, Khefenmullers, Kaunitzes, Esterhazys, Kinskys, Lobkowitzes,
Morzins and Razoemovkys in fact a lot of music was made, but also in the
less well-endowed middle class households it could be enjoyed by everyone ;
in private theatres, in the Hofburg theatre open to the public and at the
numerous public concerts (Akademien). In addition there were also the summer
street serenades, so that Charles Burney could rightly report that indeed
Vienna is so rich in composers and encloses within his walls such a number
of musicians of superior merit, that it is but just to allow it to be the
imperial seat of music as well as of power.

About 1780 this Vienna became the forerunner of a new musical fashion, which
Mozart accurately represented in the closing scene of his opera Don
Giovanni. In his great dining hall the Spanish nobleman awaits the arrival
of his stony guest. In order to give the meal a festive air, a wind ensemble
plays arrangements of arias from recent Viennese operas. Even his man
Leporello appears to know all the tunes.

The wind ensemble which Mozart used on the stage consisted of 2 oboes, 2
clarinets, 2 horns and 2 bassoons. That was no accident.

Wind instruments were already very popular for table music. At the time when
the highly regarded clarinettist, Anton Stadler, trod the boards in Vienna,
the octet, often augmented with a deep bass instrument (contrabassoon,
double bass of serpent), was so popular that it attracted a special name :
the Harmonie. When Mozart informed his father "I have to compose a
Nachtmusik immediately, but only for a Harmonie", he also mentioned the
scoring of his Serenade at the same time. The Gran Partita for 13 wind
instruments was not known as Harmonie music, but a great wind composition of
a quite special kind. The Emperor and a few high aristocrats formed their
own Harmonie, and tried to recruit the best virtuosi. Quite clearly music
playing lackies could no longer withstand the increasing demands of the
music. Composers and arrangers were commissioned to furnish a repertory.
Mozart's final scene plainly showed how the nobility were mad about opera
arrangements, especially as entertainment for the banquets lasting hours,
with which they filled their days.

Strange to say the greater part of these arrangements were made by three
Bohemian musicians. Josef Triebensee worked primarily for the Royal and
Imperial Harmonie, in which his father was the first oboist. He arranged
inter alia the whole of «Don Giovanni» to aid the digestion of his Highness.

The second oboist, Johann Went, could boast of about forty opera
arrangements, of which five were from Mozart. And since he also worked on
commission from the obstinate Prince Schwarzenberg, who preferred to listen
to the cor anglais rather than the clarinet, he had to rework many of the
operas a second time. Wenzel Sedlak served Prince von Liechtenstein as a
clarinettist, which in no way hindered him from composing for the Imperial
Harmonie as well. His greatest work is undoubtedly the arrangement of eleven
sections of Beethoven's Fidelio for a nine-part Harmonie, in fact under the
supervision of the composer himself as is shown by an advertisement m the
Wiener Zeitung of lst July 1814.

By 1782 compositions and arrangements for Harmonie had become such a
lucrative business that Mozart was obliged to undertake an arrangement of
his Entfuhrung aus dem Serail with his own hand. The reasons for this he
explained in a letter to his father : Well, I am up to my eyes in work, for
by Sunday week I have to arrange my opera for Harmonie. If I don't, semeone
will anticipate me and secure my profits... you have no idea how difficult
it is to arrange a work of this kind for Harmonie so that it suits these
instruments and yet loses none of its effects.

Two years later Maximilian Franz, the brother of Joseph II was « elected »
to be the new Elector of Cologne. On the way to his new residence in Bonn,
he allowed a Harmonie to accompany him, thus introducing the Viennese
fashion into Germany. So it is certainly no accident that in 1792 the young
Beethoven offered his Prince a wind octet as table music (first published
posthumously as op. 103).

The music publishers did not immediately anticipate good profits from
Harmonie music ; not until Germany and France took it up was their interest
aroused. Triebensee began to print parts of his works in 1803 and Sedlak
selected five operas for publication between 1812 and 1815 (among them
Fidelio). In 1816 Beethoven personally issued his 7th and 8th Symphonies in
various versions edited by S.A. Steiner. The Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung
gave this full publicity. « The name of the genial Herr Beethoven is a
guarantee so to speak for the great value of the two new Grand Symphonies
offered here ». Available are : Orchestral scores and individual parts and
versions for string quartet, piano trio, piano duet and piano solo. « All of
these editions were completed under the direct supervision of their creator,
Herr Ludwig van Beethoven.
Significantly neither the advertisements nor the publications discriminate
between these arrangements for non-symphonic forces. Obviously in those days
phenomena were viewed more tolerantly than would be the case today.
Beethoven and his contemporaries apparently viewed arrangements as another
suit of clothes in which a piece of music could be dressed in order to meet
a particular set of circumstances.

We are inclined to call Ravel's orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an
Exhibition, an enrichment, and Stravinsky's piano arrangement of the Rite of
Spring, a reduction. Beethoven regarded the orchestral version of his 7th
Symphony as the one suitable for the concert hall. The version for Harmonie
was best suited for the palaces of the aristocracy, and the piano edition
was made for personal use. That does not imply a value judgement. Why else
would he have offered an example of the piano version as a gift to the
Empress of Russia, and received for it a princely reward of 50 ducats.

The popularity of the Harmonie indirectly exerted a great influence on the
composition of the symphony orchestra and the art of orchestration. The
eight-part wind section was more and more used in the orchestra in its
entirety. This process can be followed in many works : the second
orchestration of Mozart's 40th Symphony, the last London Symphony of Haydn,
the Magic Flute and the Creation.

Beethoven could always turn to the Royal and Imperial Harmonie (at that time
Franz II's) for his Akademie concerts. It is therefore not surprising that
the consequences of this development can certainly be perceived from the
First Symphony onwards (1800). Orchestral sound clearly consists of two
separate groups, each with its own character : the strings and the Harmonie.
And Beethoven's preference for the wind instruments is revealed on nearly
every page of his symphonies.

Arrangements for wind band alone give us further matter for thought. For
example symphonic works are arranged in a similar way by all transcribers.
In addition to their own part, the oboes play that of the flutes, the
clarinets take the place of the violins, the bassoons that of the violas and
cellos and the contrabassoon that of the double basses. But since neither
oboes nor clarinets can reach the upper notes of flutes and violins,
transposing the work down is more often than not inevitable. This does not
seem to have created problems, even when the pastoral tonality of F major is
transformed mto the heroic, tonality of into flat major. Sedlak rewrote the
Fidelio overture down a third in C major ; Beethoven's Seventh ends up in G
major instead of A major, but in the Scherzo the original F major is
maintained. The symbolic nature of different keys, esteemed by numerous
musicographers, loses ground here !

Most often the arrangers also decide to make cuts in the symphonic versions.
Sedlak amputates the overture of bars 200-225 (in which there is a
modulation from C major to B major) and replaces them with two bars at the
unison - of his own invention No conductor today would allow himself to make
such a cut in a work by Beethoven, but the master himself intervened even
more drastically in his Seventh - or at least authorized it. In the last
movement, which is in traditional sonata form, he eliminated the entire
development section !

The scherzo was constructed as a rondo, with a three-fold return of a presto
and two returns of a slower trio in which Beethoven introduced tension by
progressively eliminating the internal repeats and replacing the vehement
accents of the central presto by a 'sempre piano'. In the version for wind
band, there is only the 'piano' left of this 'sempre piano'; a presto and
one trio section have been left out, but the internal repeats subsist, so
that the movement as a whole becomes a conventional scherzo or minuet form.

The last two movements have not been shortened, but in the allegretto a bar
is missing, (253), which is not essential to the musical development and
which is a literal repetition of bar 249. The disappearance of this bar
breaks the regular two-bar phrasing characteristic of this section, but that
may be precisely its purpose. In bar 254, the first flute seems to enter too
soon, as does the first violin in the final bars. The superfluous bar (253)
destroys this acceleration, but at a bad time. Above all, it is only in this
bar that the initial motif of the allegretto ends on a weak beat and not on
the following strong beat. Here is a bone to pick for Beethoven connoisseurs
!

Mike Marmer wrote on Friday, March 08, 2002 1:26 PM
Subject: [kl] Netherlands Wind Ensemble

> I just want to let you all know about an interesting recording on CD I
have
> by a group called the "Netherlands Wind Ensemble".
>
> The recording is 3 pieces by Beethoven and it is the last piece that is
> really interesting, the 7th Symphony, done all by 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 3
> bassoons, 2 horns, one double bass and one timpani.
>
> If you are into Beethoven, I highly recommend this recording, available at
> Amazon. It is on Chandos, 9470.
>
> Mike Marmer
> Germantown, MD
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>

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