Klarinet Archive - Posting 000805.txt from 2003/04
From: Dan Leeson <leeson0@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Gran Partita or Gran Partitta
Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2003 00:42:21 -0400
The great serenade in B-flat for 12 winds and string bass by Mozart, K.
361/370a, has been mentioned about 10-15 times in the last couple of
weeks. It comes up whenever the basset horn is under discussion.
(Incidentally, I'm playing the work in Modesto, CA on June 14 and in
Santa Fe, NM in somewhere between July 1 and July 9.)
It is common for everyone to call the work by its alternate title and
whenever it does I make a stink about the spelling. I figure that if I
make enough of a stink for a long enough time, maybe it will have some
impact. And whenever I do make a stink, I'll get 42 snotty letters
telling me that I'm spelling it incorrectly. No I'm not. I'm spelling
it the way it should be spelled. Everyone else is spelling it incorrectly.
The title is "GRAN PARTITTA." Now why is this the case instead of the
far more common "GRAN PARTITA" that you will find on every recording, as
if whoever put it there knows what s/he is talking about?
This alternate title -- and it has nothing to do with Mozart -- was
never used before the mansucript of the work surfaced around 1900. Where
the document was and how it went underground is an interesting story but
not relevant to the point I am making. The fact is that, except for the
owner, hardly anyone saw the manuscript between 1803 and ca. 1900.
I can find no reference to the work anywhere in the literature prior to
1906 that uses the title, and in every case after 1906 until around
1970, it is incorrectly spelled "GRAN PARTITA." In 1906, the first page
of the manuscript was published in an obscure German Music journal and
until that moment, no one (except the manuscript's owner) had ever seen
the original manuscript. But it is with the publicaiton of that 1906
scholarly article that the subtitle began to be used.
It's a bad photograph and the reproduction is poor mostly because the
words are written in red crayon, not ink. It did not photograph well,
and not until I saw the original in the Library of Congress in 1960, did
I realize exactly what the words said.
What the text on the manuscript says is "GRAN PARTITTA." Now that is bad
Italian. It is a misspelling. But that is what it says, and since the
title is used because it appears on the manuscript, then it should be
spelled the way it appears on the manuscript. Such subtitles are often
given by people other than the composer which is the case here. I don't
think the subtitle should be used at all because it has nothing to do
with the work and makes no historic or musical sense, but if it is going
to be used, then it should spelled in a way consistent with the origin
of the expression.
In 1991, I wrote a paper now published in the 1991 Mozart Jahrbuch, and
which addresses to minor detail of the history of this great work. And
slowly, slowly, slowly, people are starting to use it.
I know I'm being a pain in the ass, but whenever I see it spelled "GRAN
PARTITA" I invariably send off a note and most often get one back that
tells me to shove it high up where it is red.
But even in the face of such hubris, it is still GRAN PARTITTA.
All of this is evidence that once something incorrect gets into the
literature, it requires the strength of Hercules and the patience of Job
to get it out.
GRAN PARTITTA
GRAN PARTITTA
GRAN PARTITTA
GRAN PARTITTA
GRAN PARTITTA
GRAN PARTITTA
GRAN PARTITTA
GRAN PARTITTA
GRAN PARTITTA
GRAN PARTITTA
GRAN PARTITTA
GRAN PARTITTA
Now, I am going to sleep. I'll bring this up again in a year because
once a pain in the ass, always a pain in the ass.
--
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**Dan Leeson **
**leeson0@-----.net **
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