Klarinet Archive - Posting 000606.txt from 2004/03

From: Dan Leeson <leeson0@------.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] K622 and Tony Pay's note
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 18:47:47 -0500

Tony Pay wrote:
> In message <404F6C5B.60706@------.net>
> Dan Leeson <leeson0@------.net> wrote:
>
>
>>I fully agree with Tony that even in the presence of a manuscript, it is
>>difficult, and in some cases very much so, to produce an authentic
>>performance. But I stick by what I said, because no matter how one
>>would like to believe that what we have in K. 622 has some authority, I
>>suggest that it does not.
>
>
> So now, what do you mean, that 'one would like to believe that what we have
> in K622 has some authority' -- but you suggest it doesn't?
>
> Because this is dear to my heart too, I feel I have to pin you down, and I'm
> sorry about that.
>
> Will you really not accept that, if Mozart initially produced a sketch of the
> work in another form, for bassethorn in G (which we know he did), and went on
> to complete it for basset clarinet in A (and we have nothing other than that
> sketch in Mozart's hand, the complete autograph having been lost); but, that
> nevertheless, the solo part in the sketch for bassethorn in G, for its couple
> of hundred bars, is practically identical with the solo part of the first
> edition, apart from the basset notes;
>
> -- then that means that the first edition, apart from the basset notes, is
> very likely to be close to Mozart's autograph of the work?
>
> Of course, we may well have lost some details -- but wouldn't you be one of
> the first persons to suggest that many of those details would probably be the
> sort of thing that embellishment would obscure in any case?
>
> Tony

That we have a Mozart manuscript for a solo instrument for part of one
movement of a concerto for a different instrument is wonderful, but it
is not enough to make any declarations of authenticity about the
clarinet concerto. For one thing, two important movements are missing,
there is very little orchestral writing, the dynamics are sparse, and it
is a very much an incomplete draft of a composition. It is a blueprint
for a composition, and its similarities or even identical passages to
the clarinet concerto is very important because it lets us know that we
have most of the pitches the same, but it tells us nothing about the
articulations, phrasings, dynamics, etc. for the clarinet concerto.

And you can see for yourself how the clarinet concerto departed from the
basset horn concerto in the very first printing. There is that
marvellous one note difference that has been built back into the
clarinet version in the hopes that that was Mozart intention for that
version. I suspect that it is, but that means nothing. We have no way
to tell what that note is in the clarinet concerto because we have no
manuscript of that work, and we are simply assuming that because the
passage goes a certain way in the basset horn version, it should also go
that way in the clarinet version.

I too find the basset horn version wonderful to see and study, but
looking at another work is not proof that the manuscript can represent
the clarinet concerto to the extent that you and I want it to be.

There is a draft of a work for piano four hands. He must have written
about 60 measures before he gave up and decided to rewrite the work for
two pianos. And both manuscripts have survived. They have a
significant number of differences that cannot be contested. Maybe when
he started the two piano version he chose to do something differently.
Maybe he forgot what he wrote.

There are cases of mansucripts in which he wrote out a violin part for
the entire movement, and then went back and filled in another layer of
orchestration. And on occasion, parallel passeges have conflicts of
pitch, and sometimes rhythm. He simply forgot what he had written,
perhaps several hours or even a few days earlier.

So what the basset horn concerto is is a wonderful insight into the
origins of the clarinet concerto, but there is no assurance that when he
got around to the clarinet concerto he decided to duplicate every single
element of the earlier and very much incomplete composition, which is so
fragmentary in any case, that it does not tell us as much as we would
like to know.

I still stick with the example of the corruption of the Gran Partitta as
it went fromt he manuscript to performance parts to a printed version.
That is the real life situation, and as much as it breaks my heart to be
in disagreement with you on this matter (one that we both feel strongly
about), I don't think that the leap of faith you take from basset horn
concerto to clarinet concerto with the assumption that the two would be
completely identical (or virtually so) is a sound one.

PACE???

Dan

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

   
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