Klarinet Archive - Posting 000800.txt from 2002/04

From: Daniel Leeson <leeson0@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Temperament
Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2002 13:52:31 -0400

John, it was hard to separate your sarcasm from your facts.

And you would have to be crazy or a Freudian abberation to get from what
I wrote that it is OK to play K. 622 in any key other than A major.

I would personally injure the feet of anyone who suggested that keys
don't matter. I just said that they did not possess the emotional
content ascribed to them. In fact, K. 622 does not go well on a program
of Mozart's symphony in A major and his piano concerto in A major. It's
too much A major-ness. Key considerations are to avoid aural boredom
brought about by the fact that the ear needs changes of tonality. That
is why classical symphonies are written with the middle movement in a
different key than the first and last. And that middle movement key is
not very arbitrary, either. It is the subdominant or the dominant key,
because that key change was thought to provide the greatest contrast so
as to avoid boredom.

One plays the Mozart concerto in A major for the best possible reason,
namely the fact that Mozart wrote it in that key for whatever reason.
Now if someone wanted to do that piece in concert A major while playing
on a clarinet in B-flat, I'd think he was crazy for complicating his/her
life. And if he or she chose an E-flat clarinet, I would presume that
he or she had no musical intelligence whatsoever as well as damn poor
judgement, but the last thing I would criticise would be the concert
pitch of the performance providing it was in the concert pitch of A
major.

Now if you have objections to what I stated, try those objections
without the sarcasm. And if you were not trying to be sarcastic, then
you and I have to investigate some creative writing seminars for both of
us to attend, because that is the way it read to me.

P.S. Your paraphrase was lousy.

Dan Leeson
"John P. Varineau" wrote:
>
> So eloquently put, Dan.
>
> And such a nice argument against those who insist that the Mozart
> clarinet concerto be performed only on an A clarinet (or A Basset
> clarinet) in the key of A!
>
> Just so the irony of Dan's argument isn't missed by those who haven't
> been readers of the list for a number of years. . . . Can you imagine a
> person performing the Mozart Clarinet on a B-flat clarinet [or B-flat
> basset clarinet] in the key of B-flat? And now to paraphrase Dan:
>
> >>unless someone hangs out a sign that says, "You
> have not heard [the Mozart Clarinet Concerto in A] because the entire
> piece was transposed [up} a
> half step," no one except those with perfect pitch have any
> idea that their emotions were supposed to have been catastrophically
> realigned. Instead of exhaltation produced by the high C (in theory
> because of the key signature of the [concerto]), putting the piece a half
> tone
> [up] introduces a key signature that was said to be [something different
> than A major] in
> the [18]th century.>>
>
> Something tells me to prepare for an explosion.
>
> John Varineau
>
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> ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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** Dan Leeson **
** leeson0@-----.net **
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