Klarinet Archive - Posting 000081.txt from 2008/10

From: "Dan Leeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Is there a market for this???
Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2008 14:29:33 -0400


Dear Friends,

Now that I have finished a four year effort having to do with Mozart
portraiture and iconography, that was culminated with the publication of
"The Mozart Cache" (see www.leesonbooks.com), I'm mulling over a new book,
and I'm trying to figure out if there is a market for it amongst clarinet
and basset hornists, oboists, and bassoonists. ("The Mozart Cache" is an
entirely different book than "The Mozart Forgeries," which is a novel
written for clarinet players, and if you have not read it, look ashamed!!)

For almost 50 years I have been playing, writing about, and thinking about
the historic, musical, and performance issues of the gran Partitta, K. 361.

I've published at least 10 serious musicological articles on the piece, its
history, its troubles, and the most unsolved matter, namely when and under
what circumstances was it written. But whenever I'm asked about the various
articles, I'm told that they are not available, even in larger cities.
Keith Bowen told me that he couldn't find any copies of the Mozart Jahrbuch
in any university library in New Mexico. I guess that "The Mozart Jahrbuch"
has limited availability, which is not abnormal since most of the papers are
in German.

And oh yes, I edited the work (along with Neal Zaslaw) as part of the
complete edition of Mozart works, the Neue Mozart Ausgabe (1956-2007). It
was the first edition of the work based on the manuscript ever made
available, and it cleared up a ton of corruption that everybody (including
myself) had been playing since 1803.

So while I think I have left a nice legacy, the problem is that it's tough
to get hold of the scholarly pieces that I've written.

AND NOW TO MY POINT: I'm doing a book whose working title is "Mozart's
Serenade in B-flat for 13 instruments, K. 361, the gran Partitta." There
some new stuff in it but mostly it is putting in one place, all the various
ideas and articles that have been printed over the last 50 years (and the
spelling of "gran Partitta" with the lower case "g" and the three "t-s" is
not an accident, but most of you know all that).

I'm about half way done and it will probably push about 175 pages, with
color pictures. It's about six months to a year away.

It's not a novel, and two of the chapters are important but not fun. My
intention is to make it a source book for anyone who wants to know the
straight skinny about every aspect of the piece (at least as seen through my
eyes).

So what do you think? Is there going to be a market for this book, or
should I shut up and trip merrily into my dotage?

Here are the titles of the first few chapters. But it is still primitive
and very much a work in progress.

Chapter 1: Have Basset Horns, Will Travel
Chapter 2: The Basic Issues (including remarks about "Amadeus")
Chapter 3: Mozart's Paper, Ink, Pens and Watermarks (Not A Fun Chapter)
Chapter 4: The K. 361 Manuscript
Chapter 5: The Holograph's Peripatetic History
Chapter 6: Subtitle
Chapter 7: Instrumentation
Chapter 8: The Date of Composition, Part 1 (Also Not A Fun Chapter)
Chapter 9: The Date of Composition, Part 2
Chapter 10: The First Edition
Chapter 11: Performance Practice Issues
Chapter 12: The Two-Stage Theory
Chapter 13: Mozart's Wedding Music
Chapter 14: Other Works Containing K. 361 Music
Appendix 1: Translation of First Technical Article on K. 361 dated 1912
Appendix 2: Biography of Johann Friedrich Schink (who was at and wrote
about the first performance in 1784)
Appendix 3: Roger Hellyer's Case for a 1781 date

This may be my last hurrah. I'm tired, 76, about to celebrate my 50th
wedding anniversary, and I'm completely out of fresh ideas. Going to
concerts bores me. Once one has been a player, it is hard to be a listener.
I'm used to making music, not being an audience member. The only event I go
to is the annual performance of the Nutcracker (which I hate) but I like
taking my granddaughter to see it. Soon she will be too old to want to see
it, and then I can stop going to performances of that mind-numbing work,
which I think I played about 800 times, or 799 too many.

Dan Leeson
dnleeson@-----.net

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