Klarinet Archive - Posting 000104.txt from 2009/10

From: Joseph Wakeling <joseph.wakeling@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Lorenzo Coppola plays K. 622
Date: Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:46:47 -0400

Dan Leeson wrote:
> But the performance was not without its problems. Right at the top of
> the heap is the high g played in the final movement. There is no
> authority for that note, and in no manuscript of Mozart does it appear.
> It is simply a 20th century insertion that is of questionable presence.
> I think the highest note that can be found in Mozart's autograph is the
> high e (the fourth and fifth notes in the theme of the gran Partitta's
> variations movements).

Do we have any Mozart manuscript for that whole movement, let alone that
note? I understand that you meant the note doesn't appear in any Mozart
manuscript containing the clarinet. But since Mozart only wrote one
clarinet concerto, and that for a very particular (and skilled)
virtuoso, it doesn't seem reasonable to infer the wrongness of that note
from what he wrote for clarinet in non-concertante works.

On what basis do you say the note is a '20th-century addition'? An 1881
Breitkopf & Härtel edition of the score certainly has that note in it:
http://imslp.org/wiki/Special:ImagefromIndex/29515
... which, though almost 100 years after Mozart wrote the concerto, is
still pre-20th-century. (Is anyone aware of any earlier editions of the
score available online? Is the note in the first published score?)

There's one other piece of evidence that this note is legit. Süssmayr's
concerto movement for basset clarinet, written for Stadler, includes a
run up the 4 octaves of the instrument, from bottom- to super-C:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aigc9_m3wrY
... which suggests at least that Stadler was quite capable of playing
such high notes.

Best wishes,

-- Joe

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