Klarinet Archive - Posting 000134.txt from 2005/02

From: "dnleeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] RE: A bassethorn riddle
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2005 11:14:29 -0500

Something is strange about Adam Michlin's posting, noted below.
It's a perfectly good posting, but it appears to have been posted
as a result of my comment about how errors in a part can be used
to trace what happened at some time in the past. I conclude this
by the fact that Adam's posting includes mine. Generally one does
not include someone else's positing unless addressing a point of
that posting.

Now while Adam's posting may address somebody's argument, it is
irrelevent to mine and discusses an entirely different historical
question. What Adam seems to be concerning himself with is the
rationale behind the use of clarinets vs basset horns. An
interesting question indeed. What I concerned myself with was
Tony Pay's observation that a certain uncorrected mistake allowed
him to make a conclusion about what instrument was employed and
why.

I am an innocent bystandster surrounded by assassins!! My
virtuous and historically accurate remarks have been used to
attack someone else's subject.

Dan Leeson, the innocent and virtuous one
DNLeeson@-----.net

-----Original Message-----
From: Adam Michlin [mailto:amichlin@-----.com]
Sent: Sunday, February 06, 2005 7:47 AM
To: klarinet@-----.org
Subject: RE: [kl] RE: A bassethorn riddle

Isn't this a leap of faith? Perhaps the player(s) just chose to
play it on
clarinet (or didn't own basset horns)?

Tony's makes a very convincing argument that the piece was
performed using
clarinets. This does not address why the basset horn parts exist,
however.
Mendelssohn being one of the few historical champions of the
basset horn
(where champion = writing *anything* for the instrument), it
would seem
likely he intended the basset horn to be the preferred option.

Given the scarcity of basset horns even then, it would seem
illogical for
him to write for clarinets and then include optional basset horns
just in
case clarinets were not available. It seems much more likely that
he would
write for basset horns and include clarinet parts in case the
basset horns
were not available.

Clearly, Mendelssohn wasn't overly concerned with historically
accurate
instrumentation (if he was, there wouldn't be basset horn *or*
clarinet
parts in Bach). It would also be in keeping with the traditions
of
Mendelssohn's time for him to not be overly concerned with
whether the
parts were played on basset horns or clarinets.

I don't think this matter could be satisfactorily resolved
without
comparing both the clarinet parts and basset horn parts with
Bach's
original score. If the goal is to reproduce what happened at the
first
performance, clarinets seem to the be the clear answer. If the
goal is to
play it as Mendelssohn intended, I don't know that we have enough
information to make a compelling case either way.

-Adam

At 06:50 AM 2/6/2005 -0800, dnleeson wrote:

>Tony Pay writes about his performance on clarinets of the work
>that basset horn parts:
>
>[snip]
>
>"But there is a copyists error, three semiquaver pitches
>mistranscribed, in
>both first clarinet and first bassethorn parts. This error in
>the bassethorn
>part is left uncorrected, whilst the clarinet part has the
>correct pitches
>reinstated in another hand, most likely that of the player
>concerned. Had it
>ever been played on the bassethorn, *that* part would have been
>corrected
>too."
>
>This statemement is absolute gold. You could take this to the
>bank and is almost certainly authoritative enough to get life
>insurance!!

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+------------------------------------------------------------+
| Fri Feb 4 09:21:11 EST 2005 - 127 dononrs, 113 to go |
| The 2005 Woodwind.Org Donation Drive is Underway. |
| Please visit http://secure.donax-us.com/donation for more |
| information. Help Keep the List Going! |
+------------------------------------------------------------+
Klarinet is a service of Woodwind.Org, Inc. http://www.woodwind.org
Sat Jan 29 11:56:46 EST 2005