Klarinet Archive - Posting 000050.txt from 2005/02

From: Tony Pay <tony.p@-----.org>
Subj: Re: [kl] K388
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 14:19:11 -0500

On 3 Feb, "colin.touchin@-----.com> wrote:

> Hi again - Tony's keenness on that 2nd clt Ab to G is infectious!

It's not that I'm keen on it, quite, though that's a part of what I feel;
why I'm going on about it is rather that I'm amazed it's there in the Camden
edition, that I suspect that it's only there because Andrew Skirrow fancied
it (because it's musically really quite effective and plausible) -- and
finally, I want to make quite sure that it has no historical justification.

> ...[if] the Ab fell to G then went back to Ab (not printed in Camden), then
> we'd ask why should that one part make that (type of) move, when the
> previous two bars relied on a dynamic drop more than a harmonic bend on a
> held 2-bar chord for their effect?

I suppose if I were trying to justify it by a musical argument, my answer
would be what I said about the function of the chord [Cb Eb F Bbb], a
superposition of Cb7 and F7. That chord, certainly part of Mozart's harmonic
vocabulary (so it doesn't jar in this context) winds up the vertical tension
even further, and in a plausible way after the already slightly shocking Cb7.
I'd say the downward slip of the second clarinet doesn't need to correspond
to what all the other parts do. Not all musical logic is contrapuntal logic,
after all -- some of it is harmonic logic, some rhythmic logic.

There's another thing: the third occurrence of a musical pattern often
contains an added element, or twist, on the previous two. (This would count
as a double-twist!)

> Having found this semitone drop and liking its momentary effect is good (if
> Mozart did write it!) but I'm thinking the straight 2-bar unchanging note
> in all parts is the more likely.

Oh yes, I don't really doubt that. I'm sure the manuscript will be found to
contain what Dan put in the Baerenreiter, and to correspond to what is in the
string quintet version. The Camden edition, after all, leaves unsolved the
problem of the dissonance between the first oboe Gb and the clarinet concert
F in the middle of 34, which I'd say is really wrong, musically. Anything
that does that must have come from another source than Mozart.

But where? Do you think Andrew Skirrow will tell us?

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd tony.p@-----.org
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE http://classicalplus.gmn.com/artists
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