Klarinet Archive - Posting 000239.txt from 2009/10

From: "Forest Aten" <forestaten@-----.com>
Subj: RE: [kl] NY Philharmonic scheude
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:13:21 -0400

Get 'em Dan

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Leeson [mailto:dnleeson@-----.net]
Sent: Wednesday, October 21, 2009 11:50 AM
To: Klarinet
Subject: [kl] NY Philharmonic scheude

Next February, the NYPhil will give four performances of a Mozart work
should have died, needs to die, but won't die.

The history of the work known as Mozart's Sinfonie Concertante, K. 297b, for
four wind instruments (oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon) and orchestra has been
going downhill since the 1920s. It was allegedly discovered in the late
1800s and touted as a work that Mozart allegedly wrote but which had
disappeared. The solo instruments of the Mozart original included a flute
instead of a clarinet. So when the piece with clarinet was found, everybody
went bananas over it, saying that it was a miracle rediscovery, even though
no one realized that the instrumentation was incorrect until around 1910.

It was in the 1920s that an English musicologist (Dent, I think) wrote, "The
Man Wrote That Work Could Not Compose," and that started the descent of the
composition. It was removed from the Koechel catalog in 1963 but stubbornly
refused to die. (It should live and be well as a composition, but not one by
Mozart.) It was (and is) sort of like a vampire who can only be killed by a
stake through the heart, or feeding it garlic, or stuff like that. Shooting
a vampire does not do the job.

Robert Levin did a reconstruction of the work basing his effort on the now
discredited composition and it was recorded a lot. Fine piece of work, too.

But here we are almost 80 years after a full frontal attack on K. 297b's
authenticity, and the NYPhil blithely continues to perpetuate the work as if
nothing had happened. Aagh.

It's enough to give one heartburn, because it shows that no matter how much
is done to preserve the Mozart canon, stuff that does not belong there
remains stuck in the repertoire with crazy glue. And I am particularly
crazed because I wrote a piece for the clarinet magazine that was reprinted
in the double reed society journal, the horn call, and the flute player's
equivalent, creating golden prose to explain what the hell was going on with
that piece.

And did it do any good? You should live so long.

Next Tuesday, with a magnificent explanatory note about the defects in K.
297b hung around my neck, I will throw myself under a cross-country truck at
the western beginning of Interstate 80, followed by a repetition of the
protest a week laer at the eastern end of the same road as it crosses the
George Washing Bridge to the New York from the New Jersey side.

Dan Leeson
dnleeson@-----.net

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