Klarinet Archive - Posting 000869.txt from 2003/05

From: Dan Leeson <leeson0@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] RE: Gran Partitta recording
Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 10:06:44 -0400

Lacy, Edwin wrote:
> Dan Leeson wrote:
>
> <<<There are close to 1000 differences just in the placement and
> intensity of the dynamics in what Furtwangler conducted as contrasted
> with what the composer wrote.>>>
>
> If Mozart had "conducted," or rather supervised, a performance of this
> work, how many differences would there have been between the dynamics
> that the performers played and what was shown on the score?
>

What useful purpose is served by posing made-up hypotheses so
far-fetched and irrelevant as this? If Mozart had had a tenor sax would
he have used it? If Beethoven were not deaf would he have written
funnier music? This kind of hypothesis contrary to fact is not only
useless in general, it builds straw men that cannot be used to produce a
reasoned conclusion.

Furthermore, there is hard evidence that Mozart not only did not
supervise or conduct any performance of this work, but that he never
heard it. So what value exists in hypothesizing about what he might have
done if the circumstances which did not exist suddenly and miraculously
changed?

> If one cannot deviate in the slightest from the orthodoxy of a
> supposedly "correct" edition of a work, but must slavishly follow every
> slightest fly-speck on the music, then in what way does the musician
> differ from an automaton? How can this be reconciled with the
> often-stated assertion that performers must bring something of
> themselves to the performance, and in the case of Baroque and classical
> performers, must also improvise certain elements?

Come on Ed. An edition that changes a thousand dynamics from what is
clearly and unambiguously shown in the autograph is a far cry from
"slavishly following every slightest fly-speck on the music." Must you
use an outrageous analogy to make a questionable point? "Slavishly
following every ... fly speck" indeed!

If the subject of the domain of the composer as contrasted with the
domain of the performer is worth a discussion, that's fine. But such a
case as I described with the condition of the Gran Partitta in all
printed edition from 1803 to about 1979, is not part of that discussion.
It was nothing more or less than a screwed-up publication from the first
day and one cannot use it as a vehicle to defend artistic integrity.

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

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Klarinet is supported by Woodwind.Org, http://www.woodwind.org/