Klarinet Archive - Posting 000308.txt from 2006/03

From: Tony Pay <tony.p@-----.org>
Subj: Re: [kl] Info on Carl Maria von Weber & Grand Duo
Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 14:28:58 -0500

On 15 Mar, "Lorraine" <lorraine@-----.org> wrote:

> I read that Weber wrote the Grand Duo for Hermstedt, not Baermann - I think
> I found this out via some information on this list somewhere - was it
> Jonathan Cohler who wrote this? Inside my copy - Boosey & Hawkes edition
> it says it was written for Baermann - is this just an assumption?

Well, I don't know, but in Pamela Weston's "Clarinet Virtuosi of the Past", I
find:

"The only composition by Weber which (sic) is not dedicated to Baermann is
the Duo Concertant op. 48. This is thought by some to have been written for
Hermstedt, and Wessel and Co. went to far as to advertise it as dedicated to
Hermstedt. But Weber did not write the third movement of the Duo until 1816
and no performance of the completed work can be be discovered for some time.
The first likely performance is on 23 December 1823 at Dresden, when "a new
concerto for clarinet" by Weber was played by Johann Gottlieb Kotte. Not
long after this Kotte played a "concertante" by Weber, the piano
accompaniment being played by Julius Benedikt. Weber had hlped and
befriended Kotte when the latter had arrived at Dresden in 1817, having been
born to very poor serving folk and had a desperately hard time trying to get
started on a musical career."

What this says about Hermstedt's involvement I leave up to you. Pamela
Weston doesn't give detailed, blow by blow citations of her sources,
unfortunately.

You might find it worthwhile to get this book. You can probably find it in a
library. (I'd suggest you bought it secondhand through abebooks.com, but I
see that the lowest price currently is UKP30, which seems a bit steep to me.)

There's also another book called, "More Clarinet Virtuosi of the Past".

Tony
--
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