Klarinet Archive - Posting 000239.txt from 2004/07

From: "dnleeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] A lengthy review
Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2004 15:45:31 -0400

The following rather lengthy review of my book from the former
owner of Jerona Music is going to go on my web site. But I just
pass it along here for any who might be still wavering; i.e.,
spend or don't spend.

Dan Leeson
DNLeeson@-----.net

Review of "The Mozart Forgeries"
Joseph M. Boonin

If it didn’t have the bold disclaimer, “A caper novel” in its
cover, The Mozart Forgeries could well be shelved along with John
Carter’s An Enquiry into the Nature of Certain Nineteenth
Century Pamphlets. It might well also be classed along with the
lead article “Forgery in the Music Library: A Cautionary Tale”
which has recently appeared in the June, 2004 issue of Notes:
Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association. The question
of forgery is one that is always looming just beyond the horizon
in all academic pursuits. In this case, the forgeries in question
are a pair of lost Mozart manuscripts linked by their very
nature – the Clarinet Quintet, K. 581 and the Clarinet Concerto,
K. 622.

Dan Leeson is, by inclination, a thoughtful musical scholar and,
by profession, a mathematician. His well-crafted scenario is, but
for the small problem that it is a figment of Leeson’s fertile
and somewhat diabolical imagination, plausible both in its broad
outline and in its minutiae. Taken at face value, The Mozart
Forgeries is a picaresque novel as well as a genre novel. We who
work or have worked in and about the world of musical scholarship
are uniquely qualified to explore and enjoy this book like an
artichoke – each leaf is yummy but as we approach the heart they
become increasingly delicious until, wonder of wonders, we
finally reach the heart.

The Mozart Forgeries is aliterary romp and not just for the
musically informed. The work is a delight. Like so many a roman à
clef, the more one knows about music and musical research, the
more one will enjoy The Mozart Forgeries. If one were to make a
comparison, one would have to look at the oeuvre of P.D.Q.
Bach/Peter Schickele. On the surface, these pieces are amusing.
The more steeped one is in the music of the second half of the
Eighteenth Century, the more hilarious they become. Indeed, like
Schickele, one must be knowledgeable not only in the matters of
Mozart scholarship and the late Eighteenth Century but the ways
of librarians, scholars, collectors and greedy people in these
and other pursuits.

Inasmuch as the main character in The Mozart Forgeries,
identified only as “Librarian,” is an employee of The New York
Public Library for the Performing Arts, I took particular
interest in this aspect of the tale. Leeson’s depictions are out
of whole cloth and one must never, ever draw parallels between
“Librarian” and any of his real-life counterparts the last three
of which I had the honor to call my friends and colleagues.
Nonetheless, Leeson has distilled the essence of the heart and
mind of one who works daily with priceless musical treasures.

To give even the tiniest bit more of the plot away would be a
crime of which I choose not to be guilty. I would only conclude
with my initial reaction when I began this review, “I couldn't
put the darn book down.”

Joseph M. Boonin
Walnut Creek, CA

Former Head of the Recorded Sound and Moving Image Circulating
Collection
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Former music publisher-distributor and one-time representative of
the publishers of The New Mozart Edition

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