Klarinet Archive - Posting 000109.txt from 2009/10

From: "Dan Leeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Lorenzo Coppola plays K. 622
Date: Fri, 09 Oct 2009 16:16:29 -0400


----- Original Message -----
From: "Joseph Wakeling" <joseph.wakeling@-----.net>
To: <klarinet@-----.org>
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 11:28 AM
Subject: Re: [kl] Lorenzo Coppola plays K. 622

> 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?

What is in the earliest edition, and which dates from 1803 and precedes the
B&H edition some 74 years is not evidence of what Mozart did or would do.
The first edition of the gran Partitta suggests use of the contrabassoon,
which is entirely uncalled for. What some editor did in 1803 or 1877 is not
necessarily indicative of what Mozart wrote. The fact is that we have no
idea what Mozart wrote. And that is the soapbox on which I stand.

>
>> 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 ...

I don't see why that statement says anything about what he might have chosen
to do in K. 622. Except for the Requiem, K. 626, every single piece of
clarinet music that he wrote precedes K. 622.

>
>> 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.

What is plausible is not evidence.
>
>> 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...
>
Dan Leeson
dnleeson@-----.net

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