Klarinet Archive - Posting 000082.txt from 2006/06

From: Laurence Beckhardt <lbeckhardt@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] K361 again - pp. 53 & 54
Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 08:36:56 -0400

Thank you for the fantastic information.

One thing I find curious is this: why did the
notoriously unstable quill pen drip only on two pages
of the manuscript? Or at least so profusely - there is
a drop (unblotted?) below the 2nd clarinet on p. 25
and some real sloppy ink stains that don't look like
drops on the upper right corner of p. 3. A few other
drops here and there.

But pp. 53 and 54 (and especially 53) are unusually
drippy. Not to mention smudgy - the smudged measure
111 is on p. 54 and there's another smudge in the horn
part 8 measures earlier on p. 53, where Mozart
initially placed the fermata incorrectly for the
clarinet's eingang.

What do you think was going on? A bad quill that day
only (or that hour)? Can the confusion about measure
111 be the result of Mozart's distraction by a bad
quill?

One more probably very basic question: is "colli
oboe" short hand for "unison w/oboe?"

--- dnleeson <dnleeson@-----.net> wrote:

> Laurence Beckhardt asks about two issues related to
> the
> physicality of the manuscript of K. 361. First he
> inquires about
> "a dozen drops of liquid" (meaning ink) on both
> pages,
> specifically surfaces 53 and 54.
>
> Those ink drops are easy to explain. Quill pens
> were notoriously
> unstable and they could fling ink with little
> effort. A quill pen
> with too much ink on the tip could make droplets on
> the page with
> no effort at all. I come from a time when children
> learned to
> write with a straight pen. It had a metal nib, which
> was inserted
> in to a wooden holder. They were a bitch to use and
> kids my age
> without ink blotches on their hands were shown to be
> lazy
> students. In fact, this explanation is made more
> difficult by the
> fact that the majority of people reading it never
> used a straight
> pen and don't know that, like quill pens, they flung
> ink in all
> directions.
>
> All of those ink spots were originally ink drops of
> varying
> sizes. Had they been allowed to dry by leaving the
> music sheets
> open at that point, they would appear as dried ink
> blotches
> today. But they were not allowed to dry. Instead,
> Mozart
> himself blotted each of the larger drops with
> blotting paper,
> making circles of dried ink of varying width with
> some about 1/4
> inch wide. (Do you know what I mean by blotting
> paper, or
> blotters?) And he left the pages open at that point
> for the
> blotted but still wet ink to dry. That is easily
> discerned by
> the fact that if the pages were closed while the ink
> was still
> wet, those blotches would have been placed in mirror
> image form
> on each of the two facing pages. That did not
> happen, and the
> only conclusion that one can reach from the fact
> that it did not
> happen, is that the pages were allowed to dry before
> being put
> together.
>
> Now take a look at pages 59 and 60. On the bottom of
> page 59 by
> the final measure, Mozart wrote a measure count of
> "63." AND THEN
> WHILE THE INK WAS WET, HE CLOSED THE PAGES. Notice
> how the "63"
> has been placed on page 60 in reverse image form in
> precisely the
> same mirror location as the "63" on page 59. I think
> that Mozart
> put the "63" on the bottom of page 59, AFTER page 60
> and the
> verso on page 61 were written and then allowed to
> dry, because
> nothing else got transferred from p. 59 to p. 60
> when the leaves
> were put together.
>
> Beckhardt's question, as well as his inquiry about
> blank pages,
> are both related to the matter of how Mozart bought
> paper. What
> was the physical form that he bought?
>
> A book of 8 surfaces constituted the minimum
> purchase quantity.
> Here is a little image of what that folded up book
> look like:
> "<<". This form of two < symbols inside of one
> another is called
> a bifolium or a sheet. That is how Mozart bought it.
> "I'll need 5
> bifolia today please," is what he would have said to
> a clerk at
> the paper store.
>
> I ask you to make a bifolium yoursef: take a full,
> uncut sheet of
> newspaper and put it out on the table. It should be
> about 36"
> wide and 24" high. That is the way mold made paper
> looked like
> when it came out of the mold in which it was made.
>
> Now fold that paper in half TOP TO BOTTOM. You will
> have
> something that is 36" wide and 12" high.
>
> With a scissors, cut off 1/4 inch at the top (or
> folded part) of
> the paper. That gives you two separated and
> individual pieces of
> paper, each 36" long and 11-3/4" high (because you
> cut off 1/4"
> at the fold -- the piece you cut off was 1/2" high,
> or 1/4" from
> each of the two pieces).
>
> Now fold those two pieces of paper together in half,
> LEFT TO
> RIGHT. You will have produced a bifolium of 8
> surfaces,
> consisting of an inner folium of 4 surfaces and an
> outer folium
> of 4 surfaces. If you number the surfaces 1 through
> 8, surfaces
> 1, 2, 7, and 8 will be on the outer folium, and
> surface 3, 4, 5,
> and 6 will be on the inner folium.
>
> That's is how Mozart bought paper. So, no more talk
> of page
> numbers. We need to talk about the bifolium and
> which surface
> within the bifolium. And that leads me directly to
> Beckhardt's
> question about blank pages. There are a total of 11
> bifolia, 2
> folia, and one leaf that make up the manuscript of
> K. 361. There
> is a picture of the distribution on p. 89 of the the
> 1976/77
> Mozart Jahrbuch.
>
> They are arranged the following way:
>
> Movement 1 of K. 361 consists of exactly three
> bofolia (of 8
> surfaces each) for a total of 24 surfaces.
>
> Movement 2 is the fourth full bifolium and the first
> surface of
> the fifth.
>
> Movement 3 begins on the second surface of the fifth
> bifolium,
> uses the next 7 surfaces of it, and then adds a
> 4-surfaced
> folium, the last surface of which is blank.
> (Remember: bifolium =
> 8 surfaces; folium = 4 surfaces; << is a bifolium; <
> is a folium.
> OK? So far 5 bifolia have been used up and 1 folium,
> the last
> surface of which is blank.)
>
> Movement 4 uses the entire 6th bifolium.
>
> Movement 5 uses the entire 7th bifolium plus one
> 2-sided leaf ON
> WHICH THE CODA IS WRITTEN.
>
> Movement 6 uses 2 entire bifolia (the 8-th and 9th)
> plus the
> first 4 surfaces of the next (or 10th) bifolium,
> leaving the last
> four surfaces blank.
>
> Movement 7 uses an entire bifolium (the 11th) plus
> one folium
> (the 2nd one used in the entire composition) the
> last surface of
> which is blank.
>
> What Beckhardt wants to know is why are there four
> consecutive
> surfaces blank? And the most probable reason is
> that he sent out
> movements 1-6 to be copied out into parts as he
> composed the 7th
> movement. The other two blank surfaces are not
> really an issue.
> He tried to use paper economically by going from one
> bifolium to
> another, even across movements of the composition.
> But he tried,
> where possible, to start each movement on a fresh
> bifolium (or
> folium).
>
> Paper was expensive and he did not like to waste it.
>
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