Klarinet Archive - Posting 000439.txt from 2004/08

From: ormondtoby@-----.net (Ormondtoby Montoya)
Subj: Re: [kl] Original edition of 581
Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2004 13:25:19 -0400

Andy=A0Raibeck wrote:

> So isn't it really misleading to credit Mozart as the
> composer? Wouldn't "by Anonymous, based on
> ideas by W. A. Mozart"?

It would be a very slippery slope, wouldn't it? Exactly where would
you draw the line?

There are so many possible dilemmas --- starting with such 'simple'
dilemmas as having two holographs in the composer's hand which are
different, and nobody knows which holograph was performed, or perhaps
nobody knows even who made the decision of which version to perform.
The composer may have hated the version on which the patron insisted.
(Handel's Royal Fireworks Music is an example of this, except that
historians apparently know all or most of the details about how and when
he rewrote it.)

If you have a clear-cut answer to the above dilemma, we can move to more
complex ones --- such as annotated performance parts vs. (perhaps) a
holograph that the composer asked not be performed exactly as originally
written. Would it be 'honest' to publish something that the composer
asked to be played differently, but somehow the holograph survived?

And if you have a clear-cut answer to this, then we can debate
typographical errors or careless errors by the composer, not to mention
the availability of now-unavailable period instruments.

And if there aren't already enough dilemmas, how about the *audience*
point of view during a performance? Should performers announce "My
performance is based on Bach's ideas. and also on Professor Whoever's
1978 edition of 19th century performance practices, but I can't swear
that this is exactly what Bach intended you to hear."

If you take all potential dilemmas into account (I'm certain that I have
mentioned only a few), probably no edition would bear a simple composer
name in its title.

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