Klarinet Archive - Posting 000043.txt from 2004/10

From: ormondtoby@-----.net (Ormondtoby Montoya)
Subj: [kl] Mozart holograph --- I've seen the real thing now --- John Newsome
Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2004 20:35:19 -0400

What a surprise! I went to a Juiliard String Quartet performance this
afternoon, and it turned out that some people from the Library of
Congress were travelling with the quartet.

They displayed holographs by Bach, Beethoven, Schoenberg, Stravinsky
(national anthem arrangement which apparently was rejected in favor of
someone else's arrangement), Gershwin (if I remember correctly).... to
mention a few..... and K.219 and K.515. The library staff turned the
pages for us, and I was able to look at the Mozart manuscripts from
beginning to end. I saw the smudges that Dan describes in his "Mozart
Forgeries", rag paper that was nearly unaffected after so many years,
the inks, the titles, and all the rest of it. I suppose it's no big
deal to see these things in the flesh; but to be truthful, it was!

One of the staff was explaining about rag paper and how it was made, and
when she explained about quill pens, I was momentarily tempted to
enhance her explanation with a comment about the feathers from different
birds. But that would've been upstaging her, of course. So I didn't.

----- To Dan Leeson: one of the librarians was John Newsome. He said
"Hello" to you, and he commented that it's been a long time since he
last met you. He asked where you lived, and when I mentioned that
you're sellng your instruments, he seemed a bit crestfallen. He was
quick to compliment you on the important Mozart work that you've done
over the years.

And there was a final incongruity as I walked to my car afterwards. It
was a bit of a wrench for me:

A man dressed in tennis clothes and carrying a racket came up to me.
As he banged the strings of his racket against the heel of his palm, he
asked me: "What's going on?"

"A string quartet - Juliard String Quartet - and some manuscripts", I
replied.

"Really?" he asked. "I didn't know we had tennis teams here."

It took me a moment.......

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