Klarinet Archive - Posting 000319.txt from 2005/11

From: "dnleeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] Did Mozart improvise when he performed for more than a fewmeasures?
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2005 16:36:00 -0500

I don't think that anyone can tell you any details of how, when,
where, and duration of Mozart's improvisations. The preponderance
of them were probably of very short duration; i.e., the change of
a few notes in a particular passage. The cadenzas and eingange
were of longer duration. But whenever he played a work such as
the one you mention (of A-B-A form), the return of the A was
generally substantially improvised. It was expected to be
improvised. Think of the slow movement of K. 622 which is very
much an A-B-A form movement. I don't know what Stadler did when
he played the work, but in piano works of A-B-A form, the
suspicion is that Mozart made a whole birthday cake out of the
second A form.

He once sent a manuscript of something to his sister who
admonished him saying [approximation of her words], "I see that
the section from xx to yy is very plain. Do you really mean
that?" And his response to her was, "You are right. And I
intended to fix that at the performance."

A hierarchy of affections for Mozart would allow one to say that
the audiences liked him for his compositions, the liked him a
great deal for his performances, but they loved him for his
improvisations.

The problem with improvisation lies in your perspective of the
role of the performer. You must bring yourself to the point
where you perceive your role is that of a partner in the creative
process. If you simply think your role is one of playing what is
written in the technically most supreme way that performance of
music can be accomplished, what you will succeed in doing is
giving a performance of K. 622 that sounds like every other
performance of K. 622 as played by a master. I no longer buy
recordings of K. 622, because I've heard that piece before. I
want someone to play it in a way in which I have not heard it
before.

Mozart and his contemporaries presumed that a composition was a
platform for their creation on top of the music as written by
someone else. Some did it very well. Other sucked. It's just
like today, except that everybody sounds alike in a performance
of that work.

Dan Leeson
DNLeeson@-----.net

-----Original Message-----
From: Antoine T. Clark [mailto:trioarioso@-----.com]
Sent: Saturday, November 19, 2005 12:00 PM
To: klarinet@-----.org
Subject: Re: [kl] Did Mozart improvise when he performed for more
than a
fewmeasures?

Mr. Leeson come to the rescue.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ormondtoby Montoya" <or3mondtoby@-----.net>
To: <klarinet@-----.org>
Sent: Saturday, November 19, 2005 2:51 PM
Subject: [kl] Did Mozart improvise when he performed for more
than a
fewmeasures?

> My question is motivated by a performance last night in which a
jazz
> pianist opened with a 10-minute song. Then, about half way
through the
> concert, he played the same song again but in a completely
different
> style.
>
> I don't know whether he did this intentionally, or perhaps his
> repertoire is so huge and he is so well known for improvisation
that he
> simply forgot which song he opened with.
>
> But this started me thinking about Mozart because my image of
Mozart is
> of 'deliberate" performance. My image of him is that he would
never
> have sat down at a scheduled public performance (I'm including
'soiree'
> in this category) and he never would've started with a theme
and taken
> it on an entirely different path than the one he had already
written
> down (or published). Thus I'm excluding eingang & cadenza,
which are
> not "a completely different path".
>
> Is it known whether this is true or not?
>
> Thank you
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
----
> Klarinet is a service of Woodwind.Org, Inc.
http://www.woodwind.org
>
>

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