Klarinet Archive - Posting 000097.txt from 2008/03

From: "Daniel Leeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] Key signatures for clarinets
Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 15:17:14 -0400

I can't tell you what went through Mozart's head when he was writing =
these parts

-----Original Message-----
From: Joseph Wakeling [mailto:joseph.wakeling@-----.net]
Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2008 12:03 PM
To: klarinet@-----.org
Subject: Re: [kl] Key signatures for clarinets

Daniel Leeson wrote:
> The rule was this: clarinets should not be written in sharp keys. =
Mozart, in
> a lesson book used by one of this theory and composition students =
wrote (in
> English, too) that "the clarinet should only be written in the keys of =
C and
> F. What that meant was that the clarinet pitch selected by the =
composer was
> for the sole purpose of restricting the clarinet part to those keys. =
And
> that rule was in effect when Mendelssohn wrote his Italian symphony.
>=20
> Since the concert key of the Italian symphony is A major, clarinets in =
both
> C and B-flat were not to be used; i.e., the C would have to play in 3
> sharps, and the B-flat would have to play in 5 sharps. Instead =
clarinets in
> A were appropriate because in the concert pitch of A major, the A =
clarinet
> plays in written C major; i.e., NO SHARPS IN THE KEY SIGNATURE FOR =
CLARINET
> PLAYERS.
>=20
> Mozart himself chose to get around this constraint by writing clarinet =
parts
> in the WRONG KEY so that the instrument would not, in theory at least, =
be
> playing in a written key with sharps. Most of the overture to Don =
Giovanni
> has the clarinet deliberately written in the wrong key particularly at =
the
> point where the key of the overture goes from d minor to d major.

This seems a quite surreal situation. Presumably the clarinet _could_
actually play in the real key, otherwise Mozart could not have written
those parts. So why write the wrong key? Why bow in this strange way
to what was obviously only a theoretical restriction?

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