Klarinet Archive - Posting 000017.txt from 2005/05
From: Oliver Seely <oseely@-----.edu>
Subj: [kl] A May treat for all of you!
Date: Sun, 01 May 2005 23:18:22 -0400
Some of you may remember that I put out a call about four years ago on this
forum for a copy of the orchestral score of Max Bruch's Double Concerto for
Clarinet, Viola and Orchestra. I had recently sequenced the piano
reduction and it seemed to me to be too lovely a work to remain on my web
site with only a piano accompaniment.
Not being able to find a score only ratcheted up the challenge. Bruch
composed it in 1911 and it has been performed and recorded so I figured
some orchestra somewhere had to have it in its library. I kept poking
around and about six months ago I had a chance e-mail encounter with
Bruch's biographer, Christopher Fifield, who told me he had authenticated
the score in 1988 before it was sold by Christie's to the music faculty at
the University of Cologne. So I wrote to the music librarian who send me a
microfiche of the score.
Ninety four years does terrible things to music scores. The paper turns
yellow and the staff lines fade. When photographed in monochrome the lines
are all but invisible. Still, there are techniques. I'm a chemist, after
all. Then there was 'ol Max's inability to hit the right line (or space) on
the staff and his irritating habit of writing for bass clef when the staff
had been clearly marked as baritone clef on the previous page. Ah, well,
slings and arrows.
The long and the short of it is that the Double Concerto for Clarinet,
Viola and Orchestra by Max Bruch is available for downloading and your
playing pleasure at
http://www.csudh.edu/oliver/clarmusi/clarmusi.htm
Happy playing, all. It is really a scrumptious piece. I've found a live
violist. Now all I need is an orchestra! Those guys who live in my
computer are going to have to satisfy my needs until I find one!
Oliver
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