Klarinet Archive - Posting 000108.txt from 2009/10

From: Joseph Wakeling <joseph.wakeling@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Lorenzo Coppola plays K. 622
Date: Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:28:59 -0400

Dan Leeson wrote:
> 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.

Yes, that's what I understood to be the case. But I don't understand
why you use the word 'inserted' here. Is the high G not in the earliest
published edition of the Mozart concerto?

> 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.

Yes, but nor does a clarinet concerto have any precedent among Mozart
works that use the 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.

Indeed, I must pick up a copy next time I'm in Howarth's in London.

>> 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.

It's not evidence of what Mozart did or should have done, but it is
evidence that a high G in that passage is plausible.

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

Well, one _can_. The question is whether that's always the best way to
get musically exciting results...

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