Klarinet Archive - Posting 000140.txt from 2002/10

From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
Subj: [kl] Dover Scores
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2002 18:00:31 -0400

Re. the idea of transcribing a harpsichord piece by F. Couperin, "The
Mysterious Barricades," for four clarinets, Ken Shaw wrote,
>Don't worry about Dover tinkering with their reprinted
>scores. The only reason they can sell them at such low
>prices is that they use only public domain material and
>simply photograph it. As far as I can tell (and I was in
>music publishing for several years), the only thing they
>add are page numbers.
>
>Older editions were engraved in metal and are easy to
>distinguish from modern music typewriter or computer-
>generated materials once you know the difference.

Thanks, Ken. I just looked at the Dover edition of Couperin with a
magnifying glass. Yup, you're right. These scores are all printed from
photocopies of the Brahms / Chrysander edition published in about 1888.
Hmmmm.... Well, I'm tempted. Probably I could find time to finish the
transcription by deciding that I should quit worrying so much about turning
in an article late when the magazine in question has not yet paid me for my
last seven feature articles....

The colophon page says, "The glossary, translations of titles (in the table
of contents) and translation of footnotes are new features of the Dover
edition." No problem, because there are no footnotes in "The Mysterious
Barricades." I don't need the glossary because the title and the directions
in the score are in elementary French that I can (already did) translate
myself. The directions for playing the ornaments are Couperin's own,
photocopied from the 1888 edition. Besides, I'd eliminate that barricade
entirely by writing out the ornaments (far fewer of them in this piece than
in most of Couperin's music), because I think that modern clarinet students
have enough common sense to balk at learning a baroque composer's
idiosyncratic ornament notation system to play just one transcription
(although I think it's a shame that Couperin's system didn't catch on and
become the standard).

But I'll probably do the homework anyway. I'm a homework junkie. The
addiction flared up overnight. Serves me right for saying yesterday that I
definitely wouldn't fool around with this score any more.

I'd like to find the first edition that Couperin prepared himself, to see
whether I'm wrong to untie four of the many tied notes in the 1888 edition.
They don't sound right to me unless they're separated. Alan Cuckston unties
them in his recording and I'll bet he has a defensible reason. Can't help
wondering whether Brahms or Chrysander might have put in those ties on the
assumption that the lack of ties was a printing error in the first edition,
since Couperin ties them (and they clearly belong tied) in similar passages
elsewhere in the score. Not that I feel very comfortable about questioning
Brahms....

I played "The Mysterious Barricades" on keyboard before I went to bed last
night, just by way of affirming to myself that a bub-fudge amateur has got no
business monkeying around with a harpsichord work by a great composer; but my
reward was to hear *clarinets* playing the piece over and over and over again
in my sleep! Therefore it seems likely that Shadow Cat's reward for
insulting me repeatedly on this list will be to hear simulated clarinets play
"Les Baricades Misterieuses" over and over and over again on the computer....

Lelia

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