Klarinet Archive - Posting 000106.txt from 2005/01
From: "dnleeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] Will some kind soul ...
Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2005 21:57:54 -0500
I have read with great interest all of the postings made about
the Pamela Weston's edition of 622 as well as some comments on
other editions. The piece of Keith Koons from central Florida
was very helpful, though problematic is some ways. But he
certainly has more detail than almost anyone else has written on
the subject.
The central problem about the concerto is that everybody is very
hazy about the source for the 1801 edition, the first printed set
of performance parts, including a part for clarinet. The word
"manuscript,", when referring to the source of these parts, is
bandied about allowing the uncautious to believe that what is
being referred is the "autograph" in Mozart's hand, an item that
comes to mind at once when the words "the manuscript" are used
carelessly.
And that is what this mess is all about; i.e., casual use of very
critical words: "manuscript" and "autograph."
Unfortunately, the belief that the Mozart autograph was in any
way used to created the first edition of 1801 is, if the data
available to us is correct, completely false. This is because
Mozart's widow wrote about the disappearance of the autograph in
1799 -- though the events she describes could have happened some
years earlier -- and by which time that autograph had already
vanished. Her story is not entirely clear because she said that
Stadler pawned his briefcase with the autograph in it, on one
hand, and then changes the story to state that his briefcase was
stolen. Her remarks appear to be a retelling of what two
separate sources told her. (I used this letter as an important
part of my book, "The Mozart Forgeries.")
Thus, by 1799, and probably earlier, that manuscript was gone and
we have no idea where it went.
Now when the 1801 edition was being prepared, probably in 1800,
they used a source to create that edition. And in much of what I
read, the statement is made that the publisher used a
"manuscript" source. And from that lack of precision about what
their source was comes a great deal of confusion.
I have to assume that the publisher, Breitkopf & Härtel did NOT
have the autograph because, if Constanze Mozart's letter is
correct, it was not available at least in 1799, and possibly
before.
So there was no autograph score for B&H's editor to use. At
least that is my assumption. It has been the assumption of most
Mozart scholars for at least a century, namely that the B&H parts
of 1801 came from a source OTHER THAN the autograph.
So then, what is this "manuscript" that they used to prepare the
1801 edition? And the only thing that makes any sense is that
the "manuscript" to which they were referring was the set of
performance parts prepared FROM the autograph around 1791. They
certainly were "manuscript parts" but they were not THE
MANUSCRIPT. They were simply copied out from the autograph.
Now, as to Pamela Weston's edition, exactly the same problem
exists. There are multiple references to Schwenke using the
"manuscript" in the preparation of his quintet arrangement. And
it seems to me that the same problem that existed with B&H not
having the autograph must have been the case for Schwenke, too.
And what this says is that Schwenke also used the performance
parts of 1791 -- NOT THE AUTOGRAPH -- to create his quintet.
But here there is an interesting difference. One of the
performance parts was, of course, the solo clarinet part. And
since it was created from the autograph, it would have low notes
in it because that is what Mozart wrote.
B&H hired somebody to get the low notes out and produce an
edition that could be executed on a traditional clarinet. But
Schwenke, using the same performance parts including the clarinet
part, decided to leave them in to some unknown degree.
Bottom line: I don't believe for one millisecond that either
edition came from the autograph. It is almost certain that both
came from the same set of manuscript performance parts and, thus,
they are second generation authoritiative. Of course, they were
the most authoritative ones available in the absence of the
autograph, BUT THEY WERE NOT THE AUTOGRAPH, just a set of
manuscript parts extracted from the autograph, the real
manuscript, the URTEXT.
The reason I am into this thing up to my neck is because a very
fine player in London told me that the Schwenke edition (meaning
the one published by Pamela Weston) was created "from the
manuscript," and what he thought this meant was "the autograph."
This has been a very valuable lesson for me.
Words are important. And the selection of the wrong word --
manuscript, for instance -- is conveying very much the wrong
idea.
Dan Leeson
DNLeeson@-----.net
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