Klarinet Archive - Posting 000498.txt from 2004/07

From: "dnleeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] Where was I?
Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2004 16:24:12 -0400

Tony wrote:

BTW, Dan, do you know anything about the beginning of "Bei
Männern"? I'm
told by Jurowski that the falling wind third doesn't appear in
the
manuscript, and was put in afterwards by analogy with what Mozart
writes 16
bars later. (So in the score it goes, 'pom pom pom pom';
<silence> "Bei
Männern, welche Liebe fühlen," etc.)

But we don't do that for fear of giving our audience heart
attacks. I have
to say it's difficult to imagine.

It might be another cause for you to take up, if you think the
evidence is
strong enough. It's my first time playing Flute, so I've never
had to think
about it before.

======================================
The manuscript, which I have in front of me as I write, is
exactly as you say and Jurowski is 100% right. But the matter of
those first measures are even crazier than that. For one thing
the piece (now in 6/8) appears to have been originally conceved
of in 3/8.

So Bei Männern originally went like this:

3/8: pom pom pom | pom rest rest | rest rest Bei | Männern, and
the falling thirds of the winds are absent. It is even possible
that it originally went 3/8: pom pom pom | pom rest Bei |
Männern, and the reason why it is impossible to tell what his
original intentions were has to do with the fact that he did more
than just change the barring of the piece from 3/8 to 6/8. He
changed the placement of the tune so that the key word "Männern"
fell on beat of 4 (in a 6/8 measure) rather than the beat of 1
(in a 3/8 measure).

To achieve that end he had to go through the entire duet for all
instruments and eliminiate a measure line. The score is so marked
up what with his elimination of measure lines, that it is hard to
know what was there originally. Further, he even had to add beats
because of his need to reposition the placement of the text.

His original idea of 3/8: Bei | Männern, was radically altered to
become 6/8: | rest(1) rest(2) Bei(3) Männern (4/5) etc. So he
moved the strong beat falling on Männern where the tune had
originally been placed and put the tune so that Männern falls on
the weaker fourth beat in the 6/8 measure.

In doing that he opened up a big hole that is now filled by the
falling eighths. But he did not write those falling 8ths in the
score. They are nowhere to be found and I suspect that they were
moved in, as you say, by analogy with the falling 8th 14 measures
later. Whatever happened, those first falling eights were not
part of the original conception of the piece. If you did the
original version, half the audience would have heart attacks.

It's complicated, confusing, and quite unclear because of
Mozart's decision to make that double change: (1) from 3/8 to 6/8
and (2) to move the placement of the word "Männern" from
positions 1 (in 3/8) to position 4 (in 6/8). It is also quite
possible that he decided on the piece to be in 6/8 all the way
through but later simply chose to reposition the placement of the
tune.

I think that his idea was brilliant because the tune would have
been hum drum in 3/8, almost like a waltz. This way, it is much
more subtle.

Dan Leeson

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