Klarinet Archive - Posting 001229.txt from 2003/04

From: Dan Leeson <leeson0@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Tony Pay's thoughtful comments about the instrumentation of the Gran
Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2003 16:33:16 -0400

I've spent several hours thinking about Tony Pay's comments, purportedly
addressing the practice of using the contrabassoon in the Gran Partitta,
but, like most things that Tony brings up, it's really at a much more
refined level of musical and intellectual thinking. Most people think
differently from Tony. They start out with a generality and select
specifics defined by it.

But Tony starts out with a specific and works backwards to get the
general principle behind that specific. Both he and I know that this is
very much abstract mathematical reasoning. One sees a pattern and tries
to understand the laws that have created that pattern. It's the essence
of mathematical creativity.

The specific was the use of a contrabassoon for the G.P. I gave the
basic facts and I don't think they are in dispute, or at least I hope
not. But Tony raises the issue to a more elevated musical level by
saying, in effect, something like the following: "We have a duty as
players to take what the composer wrote and discern what is really
needed." (Notice that he does not say the far more questionable thesis
of "What is really meant.") I have to be careful here because I don't
want to go too far in interpreting what Tony said about the specific.
However, I think I have the general idea.

And using this general principle, he then goes on to say, "But passages
here and there in the G.P.are more suitable for a contrabassoon so we
may have to violate Mozart's explicitly declared intentions and use the
instrument that is better suited and really needed." (That is not a
quote, of course, just my way of putting Tony's words in my mouth.)

But in making such a statement we then come to the fine issue of
judgment and taste. Who is to say that my (or Tony's) perspective is
more suitable than the composer's explicit description, which can
certainly be taken as the composer's persepctive? And on that issue,
there is no true resolution. Is Tony's taste better than mine? Probably.
But I don't grant that refinement of taste is the key that allows one
to make that kind of decision.

Besides, I think Mozart's taste was better than Tony's and it certainly
is better than mine. So I don't accept the argument that "this passage
is much better exploited on a contrabassoon than on a string bass" is
one that permits the kind of substitution that Tony has in mind, EVEN IF
HE IS RIGHT, because I have no way to confirm that. In the final
analysis he says, "It sounds better (or works better) with a
contrabassoon," to which I once again replay "I think it sounds better
with tenor saxes."

But I have very good ammunition which may be something much better that
"you say - I say.". I have what Mozart wrote as opposed to what Tony or
I think might be a more suitable choice of instrumentation. And I'll
take that opinion over both of ours.
--
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**Dan Leeson **
**leeson0@-----.net **
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