Klarinet Archive - Posting 000435.txt from 2004/04

From: "Dan Leeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] Checking the clarinet part with the piano score
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2004 14:13:36 -0400

Tony Pay wrote:

I'm reminded of the Gouvy Sonata Op 67, where the editor, one
Jerry Pierce,
changed very many of the slurs in the clarinet part, and lots of
other things
too, for no very good reason I can see other than he happened to
think that
he knew better. This is a more extreme case: there are 13
differences
between clarinet part and score on the first page of the clarinet
part, 17 on
the second...and so on.

----------------------------------------------------
I have spoken to a lot of editors who make substantive changes in
works and when I ask, "Why did you do ... at that point?" the
answer is invariably, "Because it sounds better that way."

Most editorial changes are made on the basis of subjective
opinion. There is one edition of the Requiem in which every
rapid passage has long slurs over it. So I asked the editor why
he did that and the answer was "the surface texture of all 18th
century music was expected to be smooth." I was appalled when I
heard that because exactly the opposite is true.

People make up things that they like and presume that is
sufficient reason to do it that way. In a performance of Magic
Flute, the conductor asked me (and the other clarinetist) to play
the basset horn music on bass clarinets (which we did not have
with us, of course, though we both had bassets there) and when I
asked why, his reponse was "If Mozart had had bass clarinets, he
would have used them." I said that unfortunately, my bass
clarinet was broken and could not be fixed for weeks. The other
clarinet player said that he did not own a bass clarinet. Tant
pis!!

What is strange about many clarinetist's views of an editor is
that "He really knows," even though there may be no evidence
whatsoever that he (or she) knows anything except what he (or
she) likes to play. And this idea carries over into teaching
very often. A young and impressionable student will be told to
play a certain passage in K. 622 a certain way only because the
teacher finds that interpretation fulfilling. But the student
perceives it to be authoritative and will state that as fact for
all time.

When I edited for Barenreiter, I was give a style sheet and,
while it did not say so explicitly, the very strong theme in all
of the directions to the editors was, "You are not here to create
an edition based on what you think Mozart meant. You are here to
create an edition based on what he wrote."

I could not agree with Tony more, and this is a very rare event
for the two of us.

Dan Leeson
DNLeeson@-----.net

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Klarinet is a service of Woodwind.Org, Inc. http://www.woodwind.org