Klarinet Archive - Posting 000493.txt from 2004/08

From: <duffyl@-----.ca>
Subj: Re: [kl] The making of K. 581
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 12:02:21 -0400

Dear Dan:

From David Dow

I enjoyed a great deal a number of comments that you have put forward and
agree with you on most of the points. What I have discovered as of late
with the current period practice trend is a somewhat softening on certain
positions in terms of the way trills and some mordents and turns are being
done. For numerous reasons many groups took the sixteenth entry and used it
more like a 32cd note etc...however, I have seen a few groups in concert go
back to the more literal 16th without the crushed feeling....Handel for one
has suffered a good deal from so called perfromance practice in matters
concerning lead -ins with 16th notes...

Although I am maybe a bit obtuse there is some reason to always consider an
Authoritive performance as somewhat suspicious...the idea that we can
totally replicate what Mozart heard in his day does not mean that is what he
may have wished....there is a logical reason for this. I am quite sure it
is very possible that Mozart was sometimes very unhappy with what was done
to his "Music" by various ensembles.

And hence, we get into the concept of what is a definitive Edition...I
really feel Editors must be much clearer in giving what is a and is not in
the original manuscript...I dislike the idea of having to re-do or
reassemble an interpretation because of the nature of the Edition. Many
players who run into the Kalmus scores of various orchestral works begin to
wonder if the Conductor is working on the same idea of phrases and even
articulations...

For example...very recently we did Prokofiev Peter and the Wolf...well we
had a jackass come in with a totally different edition in terms of the
notes! I was using the Chapell Warner and he walks in with the
Kalmus...this is when one begins to suspect Conductors do not give one iota
about what the heck is going on....! This is an example of simply not
thinking before perfromance...and yes such things occur world over!

As to the Mozart I am quite sure that taking some liberty with phrasing and
even slurring is more permissable then say 20 years ago...a wonderful
interpretion of the Quintet is the Boeykens version recently...he rather
steer a straightforward course.

As always I enjoy the comments...

David Dow
Symphony NB

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