Klarinet Archive - Posting 000337.txt from 2005/01

From: "Keith" <100012.1302@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Mozart K581 on basset clt
Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 06:26:08 -0500


I know some list members live within range of Oxford, UK. If anyone is
interested, I'll be performing the Mozart K581 clarinet quintet in St Edmund
Hall Chapel at a lunchtime concert on Wednesday February 2 at 1.20 pm. It's
the only item. We are competent amateurs and music graduate students, not
professionals!

The point that may be of interest is that I am playing it on my Leblanc
Concerto (tweaked by Fox) with a basset joint to low C by Steve Fox. In
various places it does change the character of the piece. For example in
measure/bar 41, the trad version ends the scale running up an octave, which
seems to demand a diminuendo. With the basset clarinet one continues
downward to the lowest C, and the crescendo to blastissimo is both far more
dramatic and matches the sustained forte marked in the string instruments.
And then there are (scary!) full three octave leaps in the varation 1 of the
fourth movement, and uninterrupted arpeggii in variation 4. The basset joint
does also mellow the sound of the whole instrument.

Of course, since the autograph is missing (see Dan Leeson's The Mozart
Forgeries!), what basset notes one plays is, in the end, a best guess. I am
using a version prepared by Steve Fox, which basically follows the
suggestions by Kratochvil and Dazeley. All seems very sensible, usually
exploiting the low notes to mirror patterns that are internal to the work
... But who knows what Mozart would have done! Otherwise we are using the
Barenreiter "Urtext" from the Neue Mozart Ausgabe.

If anyone from the list does come, please say hallo. Bring your mouthpiece
if you'd like to try the basset clarinet. But of course, the secret is in
the Spriggs Floating Rail ligature ...

Keith Bowen

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