Klarinet Archive - Posting 000016.txt from 2007/12

From: Tom McKay <tjmckay@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: [kl] Molter Concerti
Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2007 11:26:03 -0500

Hi Karl
I don't know what these concerti are, but it actually sounds like they are
trumpet concerti rather than clarinet concerti. What you describe is just
what can be done on a valveless brass instrument.
Are they for "clarion" or something like that, rather than clarinet?
Tom

On 12/3/07 7:07 PM, "Karl Krelove" <karlkrelove@-----.net> wrote:

> I'm interested in learning something about the Molter clarinet concerti. In
> the prefaces to each of the four (Breitkopf editions), Heinz Becker says the
> following:
> "As one can see from the range of the concerti, they were written for the
> Premier Dessus. Their range corresponds exactly to the upper and lower
> extreme tones given by Francoeur: e1-g3."
>
> I am trying to understand why these concerti are written in so high a range.
> They'd be shrill and taxing enough on a larger instrument, but they were
> all, apparently, written for a clarinet in D. The quotation above, though,
> on its face confuses me more than it helps. First, what is the Premier
> Dessus? My background of high school French (40 years ago) tells me it may
> refer to the highest (top) notes, although I don't understand how "dessus"
> and "premier" go together. But also, I don't understand what the octave
> designations mean. Is Francoeur (in his *Diapason general* of 1772) using
> those designations to describe the complete compass of a late 18th century
> clarinet? If so, then it seems either the instruments stopped at first-line
> E (treble staff) or the instrument's useful range ended with G above the top
> line. The concerti sit with only a very few exceptions between 3rd-line
> ("clarion") C and ("altissimo") G 4 lines above the staff. The exceptions
> are a few instances, fewer than ten over all four concerti, of notes below C
> - specifically 2nd-line ("throat") G and "middle" ("chalumeau") C (one line
> below the staff and an octave below the general limit of these pieces). So
> the range, at least in these published versions, doesn't correspond to the
> range of 2 octaves and a sixth quoted by Becker from the Diapason, whichever
> octaves were meant. The general range is a twelfth from C 3rd-space to
> altissimo G not counting the few exceptions.
>
> So, to distill my confusion to a few specific questions:
> 1. What is Premier Dessus and whose term is it?
> 2. Is Francoeur's Diapason general available in an English translation (I
> could try reading the French, but it wouldn't even be modern French)?
> 3. What octaves was Francoeur describing in 1772, and what instruments (from
> what time period) was he talking about?
> 4. Do we know when these were actually composed? Becker implies somewhere
> between 1717 and 1734, but doesn't give an actual year.
> 4. Are these Breitkopf editions the only ones available and are they
> reliable?
> 5. Is the high tessitura of these pieces likely a result of instruments'
> having been more severely limited than those of a few years later (for which
> Stamitz and Mozart composed) or could the music have been for some reason
> misread and intended to have been played (or to have sounded) an octave
> lower?
>
> In lieu of specific answers, if anyone can point me to any useful and
> available sources, I would be happy to do my own looking (no, this isn't for
> a school paper - I'm a good number of years beyond that).
>
> Many thanks for any information.
>
> Karl Krelove
>
>
>
>
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