Klarinet Archive - Posting 000806.txt from 2003/04

From: Karl Krelove <karlkrelove@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] Gran Partita or Gran Partitta
Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2003 00:42:22 -0400

Dan,

In as un-snotty a tone as I can muster:

A) - If it wasn't Mozart's subtitle, and we don't know who added it, why
should we care about preserving the subtitler's misspelling of a word in
another language? Let him/her (whoever he/she is) turn over in his/her grave
until he/she is tired of it and goes back to rest. Unless, of course, it was
Beethoven.

B) - Why waste your energy railing against contemporary non-compliance with
some mystery person's (not Mozart's) misspelling instead of being a
pain-in-the-ass toward the goal of dropping the subtitle altogether and
using MOZART's title (we all can probably spell Serenade)?

Just wondering. :-)

Karl

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dan Leeson [mailto:leeson0@-----.net]
> Sent: Saturday, April 19, 2003 9:37 AM
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> Subject: [kl] Gran Partita or Gran Partitta
>
>
> 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.
> --
> ***************************
> **Dan Leeson **
> **leeson0@-----.net **
> ***************************
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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