Klarinet Archive - Posting 000107.txt from 2009/10

From: "Dan Leeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Lorenzo Coppola plays K. 622
Date: Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:15:18 -0400


----- Original Message -----
From: "Joseph Wakeling" <joseph.wakeling@-----.net>
To: <klarinet@-----.org>
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 10:46 AM
Subject: Re: [kl] Lorenzo Coppola plays K. 622

> 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.

We have no manuscript of any part of the clarinet concerto. While there is
a fragmentary manuscript for a concerto for basset horn in G, and which is
clearly a predecessor and a preliminary version of the clarinet concerto, it
contains no part of the last movement, which is where the high G is
frequently inserted. Therefore, the insertion or alteration of an particular
note in the text of the concerto is without authority. But the up side of
that situation is that one should be able to do anything in the concerto
since there is no autograph to contradict the action.

However, one must be guided by how Mozart wrote for the clarinet and which
notes, if any, in the range of low C (basset clarinet) to high e were never
used. There is another note never used by Mozart. I think it is a low
D-flat, but it has been a long time since I did that research.

While it is possible that he could have written the note, it cannot be
inserted on that basis alone. The pitch of a high G has no precedent in any
Mozart work that includes a clarinet.

You should get hold of a copy of my novel, "The Mozart Forgeries" if you
want to learn some important history about K. 622. So when you can't get
the facts, try fiction.
>
> 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?)

Whoever the editor was for the 1881 B&H edition had no business putting that
note in as if it were Mozart's idea. To do so is to insert his words in
Mozart's mouth.
>
> 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.

This is not relevant. What Stadler could do and how Stadler wrote clarinet
for gives one no authority to say what Mozart did or should have written for
clarinet.

Personally, I like the high G because it is logical, but one cannot do these
things based on what one likes.

Dan Leeson
dnleeson@-----.net

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