Klarinet Archive - Posting 000185.txt from 2006/02

From: "dnleeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Gran Partitta - the mystery measure
Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2006 13:01:10 -0500

I've just gotten back from the biannual meeting of the Mozart
Society of America, held this year in Indiana. That is some
clarinet faculty they have there!!! I spoke to the entire
clarinet playing student body on Friday night and then was
immersed in the conference details. But I'll come back to the
clarinet issue in another note.

Someone asked me about the fact that the German and the English
statements describing what one might do for m. 111 in the fifth
movement of the Gran Paritita, and I replied that I wrote the
English text and it is unfortunate that the German text is not a
literal translation. In fact, it is much more casual than I
would have liked to be. But I never saw the German text until
the edition was published and will have to live with it.

Another party came on the list, and in a very helpful fashion,
quoted the text that explains the issue from the newly released
Henle edition edited by Henrik Wiese. And the considerable
difference between what the Henle editions says and the
Barenreiter edition says needs a little explanation. First,
Wiese is principal flute with the Munich Opera Company and is a
very thoughtful and careful editor. I spoke with both him and the
head of Henle in Salzburg only 8 weeks ago, and mostly discussed
the philisophical differences between the two editions with
respect to this matter.

Wiese does not believe that it is the business of an editor to
state what the players should do. He believes that an editor
lays out the facts of the matter (as much as they can be laid out
in a brief paragraph), and it is up to the players to make their
decisions based on that information. He has done this very well
in his brief paragraphh, which he ends by pointing out an article
in the Mozart Jahrbuch that I wrote, entitled, "The Gran
Partitta's Mystery Measure;" i.e., he has laid out all the
relevant information but has said nothing concering what the
players SHOULD do, only what they MIGHT do. Under his
philosophy, it could not have been better done.

But that is not my philosophy. I think it to be the wrong
approach when an editor leaves the decision making process to the
players. They are not equipped to react without some serious
study, and players are most influenced by their performance
history. I stated exactly what I believed needed to be done;
i.e., leave the measure out. Of course, they don't have to take
my suggestion, they can leave it in. But I'm the editor. In
theory I know all of the relevant facts that have been
superficially mentioned in the Henle edition. I believe I know
how that passage is to go, and that caused my specific suggestion
to leave the measure out.

Which of the two editorial philosophies should be followed is not
my concern. I follow the one I described. Wiese on the other
hand, followed his. Neither of us can be criticized for doing
what we did. And Wiese and I remain friendly despite out
different views on what an editor should do in an edition when
this kind of problem arises.

Barenreiter, in the critical commentary, suggested that the
players should decide if the measure is to go in or out. And I
think that is absolutely the WORST POSSIBLE WAY do handle the
issue! This is not a problem that should be solved by the
democratic process of voting. Can you imagine if a vote were
take about the truth or falsity of The Theory of Evolution.
Technical truth is not resolved by a vote. There was once a
chapter on Monty Python in which a Cardinal of the Church of Rome
and an Official of the English Scientific society wrestled to
conclude on the truth of The Theory of Evolution, two falls out
of three.

Dan Leeson
DNLeeson@-----.net

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