Klarinet Archive - Posting 000695.txt from 2002/04

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] Mozart Concerto Issues
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 18:21:42 -0400

On Wed, 24 Apr 2002 10:32:21 -0700, timr@-----.com said:

> I purchased the Music Minus One package for the Mozart K.622 concerto
> last week. To my surprise, I find that the articulation markings
> printed in the MMO music are dramatically different from what I hear
> in my favorite recording of the piece, the 1984 performance by Antony
> Pay with the Academy of Ancient Music under Christopher Hogwood.
> (Caution: I have not conducted a scholarly analysis of K.622
> recordings, but when I play them, Tony's is the one I want to listen
> to again. Hmmm, that sounds bit like "I don't know art, but I know
> what I like", doesn't it?)

Well, that's very kind of you:-)

> I had expected minor differences here and there, but I'm seeing
> entire runs that are marked slurred where I hear staccato, and vice
> versa. This, naturally, makes it difficult for a tyro to know where
> to go next.
>
> My temptation is to assume that the MMO score is derived from some
> older and overzealous editing, whereas Tony's performance was the
> product of more scholarly research on the piece. Is that being nave?
> Is there really that much freedom to interpret, or can it really be
> said that one is wrong and one is right?

The situation is that the *edition* I played off, the NMA/Baerenreiter
edition, was the product of more scholarly research on the piece. What
I actually played took some liberties with that for expressive reasons.

I don't want to go into the story of the Concerto too deeply, because
it's all been covered before, and is in the Klarinet archives. But
essentially, we don't have Mozart's manuscript, so the degree that you
accept the first edition (apart from the basset notes), which is what
NMA is mostly based on, governs what you do in performance.

Mozart often applies slurs 'rather lightly' in the manuscripts we do
have, in the sense that there are passages that are unslurred that you
might well think need some sort of slurring to work well. The
historical perspective is that earlier composers -- Bach, for example --
expected their performers to understand how to apply slurs to unslurred
passages, and there was an unwritten convention of how to do this.

So even in Mozart, the non-existence of a slur doesn't *necessarily*
imply that the passage is to be played staccato.

On the other hand, a mixture of slurred and unslurred notes would seem
to indicate that, at that point, Mozart wanted to be specific.

The upshot is that you have some choice in the matter. It's how we
exercise that choice that is interesting.

My own view is that a choice of articulation heightens the division of a
bar into note-groupings, and that you choose which note-grouping you
want according to the context.

For example, the thirteenth solo bar consisting of eight
semiquavers^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hixteenth notes plus a half note divides
naturally into two units, so I'm inclined to articulate either all the
sixteenth notes or just slur the first two.

*However*, if *you* think the rhythmic needs of the music (and
therefore the answer to the question, how do I want to play that bar?)
call for a division of the first half of the bar into two quarters (so
that the first half of bar 13 is 'in four' and the second half 'in
two'), then you can 'slur two and tongue two', to use the common term,
and that enables you to create that particular variety of emphasis.

In this bar, Mozart in the Winterthur Fragment (essentially the sketch
of the first couple of hundred bars of the first movement in an earlier
version) writes no slurs at all, and that's true of both the first
edition and the Baerenreiter.

This is just a trivial example, chosen because I'm away from a score
(and can count to thirteen:-) but you can easily find many other
passages in which the move from 4-in-a-bar to 2-in-a-bar is an
expressive one.

If I come clean about that recording, I have to say that I now don't
play so much staccato, and it's all changed rather a lot in other ways
too. Part of that is to do with getting better technically on the
instrument. What's not often realised is that staccato is actually in
many ways *easier* than legato, particularly on a period instrument,
because you can control the weight of individual notes more precisely.
If you have to slur, it's harder to make the passagework even -- but
sometimes the end result is more satisfactory, even if you're less
comfortable.

So, finally, I recommend the Baerenreiter edition -- in fact, I say that
it's the only acceptable one, even if some of what's in it is a bit
questionable -- because it *doesn't* make those decisions for you. It
leaves you and Mozart together on your own, and you can decide
together:-)

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE http://classicalplus.gmn.com/artists
tel/fax 01865 553339

... Just another inmate in this ASYLUM!!!

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