Klarinet Archive - Posting 000031.txt from 2006/05

From: "David B. Niethamer" <dnietham@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: [kl] Grand Duo
Date: Thu, 04 May 2006 08:29:16 -0400

On May 3, 2006, at 11:37 AM, Ormondtoby Montoya wrote:

> Google found an article by Eric Simon which explains how Simon found
> the autograph.
>
Thanks for this link! It's interesting to read this sort of article
from the 1950's, well before this sort of scholarship was widely
accepted.

I owned and used a compilation of Eric Simon edited pieces from a
Schirmer publication, "Masterworks for Clarinet and Piano". This book
contained the Weber "Grand Duo", Weber variations, both Brahms sonatas,
Schumann Fantasy Pieces (in A and Bb) and the Mendelssohn Sonata. All
for $4.95 when I bought my original copy. At $20 in the 1970's, it was
still a bargain, and the editions were pretty good. This was in the
days before the publication of the "Wiener Urtext" Brahms sonatas.

Simon's Schirmer edition of the Mozart Concerto was one studied for an
article in "The Clarinet" some years ago, and as I recall (I can't find
the article in a hurry) it had the fewest differences from the
Barenreiter NMA edition, which the writer used as a benchmark.

The following is taken from the Yale University Music Library web site
about Eric Simon:

Born in Vienna, Eric Simon (1907-1994) studied piano from the age of 8,
and at the age of 14 he began studying the clarinet with Victor
Polatschek, the principal clarinetist of the Vienna Philharmonic. Simon
later studied with Polatschek's successor, Leopold Wlach. After
spending one year in the Soviet Union, where he played in the Moscow
Philharmonic, Simon subsequently held positions playing the clarinet in
the Vienna State Opera orchestra and the Prades Festival Orchestra. In
1938 Simon left Europe for the United States, moving first to New York,
and in 1949 settling in Sharon, Connecticut, where he maintained his
home for the rest of his life. Following his move to the U.S., Simon
played in the New York City Symphony under Leopold Stokowski and
Leonard Bernstein.
In 1940 and 1941 Simon gave clarinet lessons to Benny Goodman, who had
been recommended to Simon by John Hammond. Simon's work with Goodman
was indicative of the esteem in which he was held by his musical
colleagues, first in Europe and later in the United States. The list of
friends with whom Simon carried on correspondence and musical
collaborations constitutes a veritable who's who of twentieth-century
music. An important collection of Simon's correspondence with
composers, conductors, and other musicians now resides in the Music
Library at the University of California, Los Angeles, under the
shelf-mark Collection no. 128.
Throughout his teaching career, both in his private studio and at the
Mannes School of Music and the New School, Simon insisted that students
of all ages be engaged with the best musical models possible, and he
often created his own transcriptions and arrangements to facilitate
such interactions. Simon's musical transcriptions also show an abiding
love of the Viennese masters Beethoven, Schubert, Strauss, and Brahms,
whose music figures prominently both in this collection of manuscripts
and in the several published editions of Simon's arrangements. In
addition to his active career as a teacher and arranger, Simon also
turned his attention on occasion to original composition. Of particular
note in this collection are the original works for organ and choir that
he composed in the 1970s for the First Congregational Church in New
Milford, Connecticut.

Hope some of you find this interesting.

David

David B. Niethamer
dnietham@-----.edu
http://members.aol.com/dbnclar1/index.html

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