 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2009-08-28 20:45
I want to clarify the difference between the 'descriptive' notation used by Mozart -- considering in particular, its use in the clarinet concerto -- and the different, more 'prescriptive' notation used by other later composers. It seems to me that although this BBoard is a very limited forum, an initiative needs to be made on all fronts -- and this is one of them.
I intend to do it in bits, as I did in talking about 'support'. (Funniily enough, 'support' will come into the discussion.)
So to begin with, I want to point out that the text of a simple STORY, to be read aloud to children, is a good example of a descriptive notation.
It's descriptive rather than prescriptive, firstly, because it gives no instructions as to the expression that the reader may give to a reading of it. (There are many ways to read a story.)
But there is another way in which it is not prescriptive. That is, that behind the written text there lies a hidden structure of assumptions, embodied in the language, to do with how the words are pronounced. A non-English reader may well mispronounce the phrase 'different pronunciations' -- failing to understand that the first word is accentuated on the first syllable, and the second word on the fourth syllable.
A 'prescriptive' notation would be one that made that accentuation explicit.
So a 'descriptive' notation often assumes a degree of knowledge on the part of the reader of that notation.
Mozart's notaton is of that sort. It will be instructive to consider why it cannot be translated into a prescriptive notation.
Tony
Post Edited (2009-08-29 00:08)
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Author: clariknight
Date: 2009-08-28 21:29
Thank you for bringing this up. This is an excellent way to explain the differences in the way Mozart wrote his concerto versus the way, say, Brahms wrote his (clarinet) sonatas. It has made me think in a more academically musical way, which is something that the summer has robbed me of any ability to do. As to your prompt for conversation, I will make an attempt to keep up with the vast knowledge that others are sure to have.
To begin, I believe we must consider historical factors: i.e. how the piece was originally played by Stadler, how it has been played since, and how clarinetists today view it. It is, of course, not only impossible to know how Stadler played it, but also - because it is impossible to lump together the players of any one time period as viewing in the same way - to completely understand how the piece is or was understood by the people of any time period. So this brings me to wonder whether or not it would be impossible to truly decide whether or not the piece should or could have been "prescriptive" - perhaps never entirely but possibly more so than we believe it to be today? Stadler and Mozart would of course been in communication during the time the piece was being written, so is it not possible that they decided upon ways to play it between them, without Mozart ever having written any of it down? This is all speculative and based upon no real grounds, other than the fact that Mozart was close to his death when the piece was written. Perhaps there was not time to make any changes?
Another point that comes to mind is that the original autograph no longer exists. Mozart may have written more prescriptive markings on that version than the one published later for the regular (non basset) clarinet.
This has all been speculative and perhaps a bit side stepped, but I think it is important to consider these possibilities when deciphering why we cannot make this piece prescriptive. I think this next part may be more closely related to the original subject.
The concerto is one of the oldest pieces for clarinet. Written in 1791, it has had a lifespan of countless concerts and recordings spanning over two hundred years. How many clarinetists have played it, each of whom has their own sound, musical mind, and most importantly, idea of articulations and emphasis? Without clear markings as to how it "should" be played, over all this time it would be nearly impossible for it not to have evolved. And now, over two hundred years later, we look back (and thanks to the magic of recording, listen back) to how it has been played, each time slightly (or more than slightly) differently, and see that there is no mass grouping of the way it is interpreted, not even close. So it becomes impossible to make it prescriptive - to do so would be contradictory of over two centuries of history.
Well, if none of that makes sense, at least I hope I haven't made myself a fool with Tony Pay watching .
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2009-08-28 22:10
I wrote:
>> I want to clarify the difference between 'descriptive' and 'prescriptive' notatiion in Mozart -- in particular, in the clarinet concerto.>>
I now see that this is ambiguous, as well as being misspelt:-)
May I rephrase it, as follows:
"I want to clarify the difference between the 'descriptive' notation used by Mozart -- considering in particular, its use in the clarinet concerto -- and the different, more 'prescriptive' notation used by other later composers."
[now updated in the initial post to the later version]
The point is that Mozart's notation is ALWAYS descriptive, in the sense I want to characterise as we go on.
Tony
Post Edited (2009-08-29 00:09)
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2009-08-28 22:31
clariknight wrote, in part:
>> ..this brings me to wonder whether or not it would be impossible to truly decide whether or not the piece should or could have been "prescriptive" - perhaps never entirely but possibly more so than we believe it to be today?>>
I'm sorry; I hope I've now made it clear that I was talking about Mozart's music in general, and wanting to use the concerto just as an example -- albeit one appropriate to the BBoard.
>> The concerto is one of the oldest pieces for clarinet...there is no mass grouping of the way it is interpreted, not even close. So it becomes impossible to make it prescriptive - to do so would be contradictory of over two centuries of history.>>
That's true. But my distinction between 'prescriptive' and 'descriptive' is a different one. It is the notion that a composer using a 'descriptive' notation is writing the way they do because they ASSUME a set of background responses in a player.
My analogy was an author writing to be read aloud, UNDER THE ASSUMPTION that the reader would understand standard English pronunciation rules.
Tony
Post Edited (2009-08-28 22:52)
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Author: clariknight
Date: 2009-08-28 22:56
I see now what you are trying to get at (edit: not that I fully understand what you are getting at, but that you are talking about Mozart's work as a whole, not just the concerto). The reason I wanted to respond to this in the lengthy way that I did was because I feel like I actually have an idea of what I want the concerto to sound like, as well as what other people do. As to Mozart's music in general, I have not listened to nearly enough to comment with any sort of fluency.
You wrote as well:
"That's true. But my distinction between 'prescriptive' and 'descriptive' was a different one."
I am (and this is my own fault, not a problem with your writing) failing to understand exactly what you mean by "descriptive vs. prescriptive" if what I have written does not fit. How I interpreted what you said is that a descriptive piece of work does not tell the musician exactly what to do with every phrase, but that it has a general idea behind it that native music speakers inherently know (or are partially taught by teachers?); a prescriptive piece, on the other hand, would have specific accents, slurs, staccatos, crescendos/decrescendos, etc. to let the musician know exactly what the composer wants. Is this what you are getting at?
Forgive me if I am missing the mark entirely.
Post Edited (2009-08-28 22:57)
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Author: FDF
Date: 2009-08-28 23:17
As a theatre person who plays clarinet, I cannot help but compare the interpretations of Shakespeare to those of Mozart. Shakespeare was edited from the first folio on, and what he wrote and our understanding of his work has been greatly influenced by editors. However, in the theatre Shakepeares' actors have passed on bits of business and vocal interpretations. Historically, actors learned their craft witnessing the best and then passing on what they saw and heard to others. I suspect that much the same has occured with Stadlers rendering of Mozart. In other words, the clarinetists who heard Stadler play passed on what they heard to others, so that some semblance of what Mozart wrote and Stadler played has survived to this day through performers.
I agree that a good playwright or composer writes in a way that his work is "descriptive" without being "prescriptive." However, this relies on the ability of instrumentalists to interpret and upon the musical conventions of the day and age.
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2009-08-28 23:31
clariknight wrote:
>> Forgive me if I am missing the mark entirely.>>
No, you're not missing it at all.
But -- your struggle to express yourself clarifies the overall difficulty.
The point is, Mozart wrote descriptively because his music was the sort of music that HAD to be written descriptively. So the modern assumption -- that we CAN produce a prescriptive version -- is a mistaken view of the sort of music that Mozart wrote.
The idea of this thread is to disabuse us of that mistaken notion.
Of course, Mozart wrote what, to us, looks like 'flat' music. WE want to add dynamics and articulations.
But what we miss is that there are background assumptions to Mozart's notation, of two sorts:
(1) Articulation assumptions. These were conventional, and to an extent arbitrary. Recent posts here have addressed this.
The more important sort, however, consists of:
(2) Metric and phrasing assumptions.
These are fundamental, and were necessary to the style. However, and crucially, they can be applied to DIFFERENT DEGREES; and the subtle variety of that application constituted the expressive vocabulary of the style.
We'll get round to all of this in due course:-)
Tony
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2009-08-29 00:02
FDF wrote, in part:
>> I agree that a good playwright or composer writes in a way that his work is "descriptive" without being "prescriptive." However, this relies on the ability of instrumentalists to interpret and upon the musical conventions of the day and age.>>
Absolutely. And my contention is, that the musical conventions of our day and age have got in the way of our realising important parts of what Mozart wrote, because our musical conventions differ very radically from those of Mozart's time.
Tony
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Author: Brenda ★2017
Date: 2009-08-29 03:08
When we prepare pieces for exams or juries we're judged according to the modern concepts, which can vary greatly from what Mozart may have had in mind? If that's the case I take a dim view of examiners and judges for having a narrow point of view of what's "right". We'd have to "give them what they want" in order to get the mark or position we want, and leave the interpretation to the performance stage.
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Author: davyd
Date: 2009-08-29 17:50
There are many different published editions of this work. Are there some that are particularly better, or worse, at being descriptive versus prescriptive? By what objective standards can descriptiveness and prescriptiveness be judged? Or am I missing the point entirely? (which wouldn't surprise me)
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2009-08-29 23:02
davyd wrote:
>> There are many different published editions of this work. Are there some that are particularly better, or worse, at being descriptive versus prescriptive?>>
The only one without added expressive material is the Baerenreiter. So it is the only descriptive one.
Of course, in the absence of the MS, it's difficult to make that judgement truly watertight.
Tony
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2009-08-29 23:40
I have followed the course with interest (I'm sitting in a back row in that auditorium, if you can see me from there <waves>) and have a question, just so that I know I got it right:
"Descriptive" is what you see on the paper, implying the the implicit cultural context from the period it was written, just like "swung eights" didn't have to be printed on the sheet music for a fictional "early morning blues". It just says "play a quarter B, then a quarter A" etc. Right?
So, when you say that Mozart simply wrote the descriptive "tune lines" and expected the musician to figure out the best way of interpreting them, then in other words he produced a fake book (not in a derogatory sense) and we are scratching our heads about how he could have meant this measure to be played.
Yet we rely on dogmatic or opinionated "interpretations" of publishers and other musicians who liberally adorned the original score with the "playing style du jour", from day one, and that it isn't the "Mozart Clarinet Concerto" but rather a "Stadler Clarinet Concerto Inspired by Mozart" or the "Mozart Clarinet Concerto As Understood By <name withheld>"?
So...would it be completely wrong (in a moral, and in a musical sense) that we also play his works according to the "menu du jour" as we interpret the musical conventions back then?
Oh, and a related question: What right does a publisher have to alter a composer's work without his/her permission?
--
Ben
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2009-08-30 03:28
>> That's true. But my distinction between 'prescriptive' and 'descriptive'
>> is a different one. It is the notion that a composer using a 'descriptive'
>> notation is writing the way they do because they ASSUME a set of
>> background responses in a player.
That's true not only in Mozart 's music and not only music, but sometimes very interesting and original ideas can come especially from those who don't know much about it. Maybe not often, I'm not sure, but sometimes. I remember situations where a musician (or sometimes even a "regular person" ) would have ideas on specific music that someone coming from this style wasn't so likely to consider.
So just as an example in Mozart's music, someone who is not familar with the style could play the concerto terribly, but they could also play it in a way that makes sense globally with itself eventhough it is different than the style of Mozart. Maybe the former happens more (a lot more?) but the latter can happen.
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Author: Koo Young Chung
Date: 2009-08-30 14:13
I believe that player should be able to come up with a good phrasing and dynamics so forth even when there is no markings at all.
Each written music has an innate structures and interpretation clues even when the composers didn't specify them explicitly(predescriprtive?).
If you don't know how to interprete or rub it wrong way,then you're not very musically talented.
"descriptive"or "predescriptive",people plays the way they think most musical to them.
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Author: srattle
Date: 2009-08-30 15:06
Koo Young: Good phrasing, and correct phrasing are different things. Could you expect a good, modern author to correctly use iambic pentameter without properly knowing what it is? Could you expect a dog to be able to fly just because you gave it wings? Even a very good dog?
It is possible to create harmonious phrasing with contemporary phrasing ideals, but not possible to create Mozart's phrasing without knowing explicitly those ideals.
It also would be possibly good, but wrong to use Mozartian phrasing in Wagner. It could sound beautiful, but wouldn't be what Wagner wanted.
Since we have less strict rules in Music in the Romantic era onwards, Wagner wrote much more 'descriptively' so that his concepts could be followed to the point. However, the prescriptive part is still there, with the knowledge that most contemporary musicians would look for the long lines, the volume of sound, and the none-speach oriented phrasing/articulation.
I would say, yes a great musician would be able to interpret Mozart's score, but this would be because a great musician would know the tools behind the score, and then interpret it with that in mind...
Clarinbass:
What I think Tony is saying is:
During the time of Mozart (although not specific to Mozart himself) there were certain performance rules/practices that are very different from those today. For instance, today we might play the concerto and make a long, beautiful crescendo up to a high note, whereas in Mozart's time, that would not have been the norm at all, any more than taking a long note and just doing huge swells on it over and over again isn't the norm today.
This would mean that although someone who doesn't know about these norms from Mozart's time could possibly play something that is beautiful from today's standards. It would, however, be inaccurate to what Mozart would have been intending.
That isn't saying that either way is 'better' or 'worse' or not beautiful, but if we are trying to analyse historically what Mozart would have expected to hear, it is not possible to find that, playing it using the musical rules of today, and without the knowledge of that classical structure.
I think that the Limerick is a perfect example of what prescriptive is. Most people know how a limerick should be read, how the rhythm works and what it brings to the poem.
Someone who has never heard of a limerick, however, might read it slow, and poetically, without the correct rhythm.
This might be a beautiful reading of the poem, but would miss the lightness, and funny intentions of the author, because it was written based on the limerick form.
I hope any of that makes sense, and Tony, I hope I'm not incorrectly paraphrasing you.
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2009-08-30 15:39
Tony wrote- "So a 'descriptive' notation often assumes a degree of knowledge on the part of the reader of that notation.
Mozart's notaton is of that sort. It will be instructive to consider why it cannot be translated into a prescriptive notation."
(super hypothetical question about this)
I can see this makes sense for some of works that have a MS in existence, but with the Concerto we don't have a MS. Thus, we really don't know about the validity of any of the articulations in the first place- so which should we take seriously?
I truly wonder about the historically accurate performance concept- at what point does a performance become invalid due to lack of "authentic" performance practices? And the circular argument question also comes back- even if we know what was common for most music of the time, how do we know Mozart liked/wanted that in his music?
A good example of this I learned in grad school was that, although orchestra and choir in Mozart's time were small, he often requested more funds so that he could hire more people to have a bigger ensemble. Evidence shows that he never really got the numbers he wanted. So what do we do? Perform it with the small numbers that were in the first performance or perform with more people (but how many?) as it seems Mozart wanted?
Post Edited (2009-08-30 15:41)
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Author: Sarah Elbaz
Date: 2009-08-30 16:02
srattle wrote:
> I think that the Limerick is a perfect example of what
> prescriptive is. Most people know how a limerick should be
> read, how the rhythm works and what it brings to the poem.
> Someone who has never heard of a limerick, however, might read
> it slow, and poetically, without the correct rhythm.
> This might be a beautiful reading of the poem, but would miss
> the lightness, and funny intentions of the author, because it
> was written based on the limerick form.
>
Thats interesting. The first idea I had in mind when I read Tony's post was of the Bible and the Talmud (the Oral Law).
The Bible , according to Tony, is a descriptive text. Anyone can read and understand the Bible, and the signs tell you exactly how to read it and sing
it, and if you read it right, you also understand it.
The Talmud however- is a prescriptive text- you HAVE TO KNOW the Bible to understand the Talmud.
I don't want to go into a mine field- but I will add that the New Testament
can be descriptive or prescrictive. If you know only the New Teastament- its a descriptive text. But if you knoe the Bible, the NT will be a prescriptive text , because the people who wrote the NT , knew the Bible very well.
Theat a very interesting subject Tony, we're waiting for the next bit.
Sarah
PS: I would like to add that I am not a religios person at all, I just think that the Bible is the best book I ever read :-)
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Author: Jack Kissinger
Date: 2009-08-30 17:30
Perhaps Mozart wrote descriptively because he expected performers to follow the performance practices of his day. But I think it's an indication of his genius that his works have generally proven to be timeless. They stand up quite well to modern interpretations that sometimes reveal new insights (or not, e.g., Tale Ognenovsky, ![[rotate]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smiley25.gif) ) Or did Mozart expect that performance practices and instruments would evolve, perhaps in ways he could not anticipate? Then, perhaps, the true evidence of his genius is that, in allowing performers to apply their own interpretation to his works, he allowed for those works to evolve and grow and remain relevant, rather than becoming museum pieces.
Robert Marcellus' recording of the clarinet concerto is often held up by people who post on this Board as a standard of excellence. Perhaps it is. But I suspect that, if some music historian were to grade it on the basis of authenticity regarding performance practices of Mozart's time, it might not get a very high grade. Would that render the performance less interesting? moving? enjoyable?
Best regards,
jnk
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Author: srattle
Date: 2009-08-30 17:39
sorry, in my post, I managed to stupidly mix up the words prescriptive, and descriptive. If anyone reads it, just switch them. . .
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2009-08-30 23:30
I have mixed reactions to editors adding prescriptive material to descriptive scores. As an amateur, I don't delude myself that I know early music performance practices better than a good editor does. I like getting advice -- but I do want to distinguish between the original score and the editor's version. Editorial fashions change. Even an amateur might be forgiven for studying the history of a score in enough detail to conclude that some editions aren't worth two squeaks.
Annotations help, but some editors cram in so many footnotes and even lines of text above or below the staves that the result is clutter and distraction. Though printing in color adds significantly to the printer's expenses, I'd love it if editors would put their own corrections, best guesses, dynamic markings and other additions or alterations in a non-distracting, quiet but legible color -- I'd choose dark blue -- so that music readers would know that anything appearing in black type is unquestionably the composer's own. Save the text blocks for the end notes.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2009-08-31 03:22
<< Clarinbass:
What I think Tony is saying is: <<
I understood what he was saying. I don't disagree with him and nothing that I wrote suggested that I do. So I'm not sure why you are re-explaining it to me. Maybe you misunderstood my post.
Post Edited (2009-08-31 14:50)
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2009-08-31 14:41
OK, so some of the ground has been cleared. Thanks to everyone who contributed.
I'd like to change the terminology, if that's OK, mainly because the words 'prescriptive' and 'descriptive' are a bit unwieldy. Also, they've been used the other way around by a couple of people.
The change -- and this is standard in the literature, by the way -- is to use the terms:
THIN notation as the equivalent of 'descriptive notation', and
THICK notation as the equivalent of 'prescriptive notation'.
So, Mozart's notation is 'thin' because a substantial part of a contemporary performance would not have been explicitly represented in the score.
Webern's notation is 'thick', on the other hand, because his instructions are more detailed -- indeed, copious.
What I wrote in response to Clariknight lacked clarity -- I'm sorry about that -- but it did perhaps serve to get over the notion that someone reading those two definitions (and their previous equivalents, which talked only about 'descriptive' and 'prescriptive') may well be making assumptions of which they are unaware -- and moreover, that those assumptions may be different from the assumptions of another reader.
Lelia's post might be a good beginning in seeing this. She imagines a responsible editor 'thickening' Mozart's 'thin' score by adding "dynamic markings and other additions or alterations in a non-distracting, quiet but legible color."
I'd say that, to a modern performer, such editing acts in the direction of killing off our ability to respond in the appropriate way to Mozart's thin notation. It puts a bit of modern grit into a system that already works quite well, thank you.
How can I presume to say that? Well, Mozart the professional didn't need any editorial changes to his system; and he didn't require it of his publishers; perhaps we can extend him the courtesy of appreciating the likelihood of his knowing a bit more about what made his music work than we do, at first blush.
I haven't got around to saying much about what the system IS, yet, though I imagine quite a few of you know. But here's a taster.
Sometimes my orchestra has a director who says something like, "make sure that THAT chord comes away, so that the vocal entry isn't obscured." Many players reach for their pencils at that point, to write in a diminuendo.
But in this style, ANY chord implies a lightening towards its end -- more or less. So for the less stylistically aware, writing in a diminuendo is simply a crude modern approximation of what they should have been doing -- 'more or less' -- in the first place. And what THAT does is to reinforce the notion that an unpencilled chord isn't subject to the conventions of the style.
But it is.
So, thin notation comes as a package. When you understand it, you see why modern editorial markings obscure it.
Actually, this 'more or less' lightening of the texture that is such an important feature of Mozart's music isn't really capturable by calling it a diminuendo, as anyone who has engaged in the job of teaching it to a student will confirm. It involves timbre as well. It's what good playing -- and more suggestively, good singing -- consisted of at the time.
And -- here's the important bit -- it's not as though the 'style' is a BACKGROUND to what expression we then want to put on top of it. The very variability of the elements of the style -- the 'more or less' of each one of them -- CONSTITUTES the expression. The musical notation has the expressive possibilities contained 'within' its thinness.
I'll go on to talk about what I've come to call the 'bounce setting' of a passage in the next post. The idea that there is something like a 'bounce knob', that we can turn up and down in our playing, is useful in all sorts of other music, as well as in the classical.
Tony
Post Edited (2009-08-31 17:37)
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2009-09-01 18:59
Tony Pay wrote,
>>Lelia's post might be a good beginning in seeing this. She imagines a responsible editor 'thickening' Mozart's 'thin' score by adding "dynamic markings and other additions or alterations in a non-distracting, quiet but legible color."
>>
I'd say that, to a modern performer, such editing acts in the direction of killing off our ability to respond in the appropriate way to Mozart's thin notation. It puts a bit of modern grit into a system that already works quite well, thank you.
>>
How can I presume to say that? Well, Mozart the professional didn't need any editorial changes to his system; and he didn't require it of his publishers; perhaps we can extend him the courtesy of appreciating the likelihood of his knowing a bit more about what made his music work than we do, at first blush.
>>
No discourtesy to Mozart intended. I agree with you in principle, but as a practical matter, you can afford to presume because your presumptions are not presumptuous. You're qualified to edit these scores yourself. You're better qualified, in fact, than a lot of the people who do edit Mozart's scores. I'm not. Ergo, the best score for you may not be the best score for me.
Though I'll happily concur that Mozart knew "a bit more about what made his music work than we do," I don't know nearly as much about how much he knew as you do. Moreover, although I probably should have a teacher, I don't have one. Therefore I'll take all the good advice I can get on the cheap from an editor (or a bulletin board). I don't question that the "thin" score works better for you, but it's likely to leave me grumbling and kicking the music stand and never playing a passage the same way twice. Being able to *compare* the original, thin score with editors' reasoning for their varying thicknesses of editorial scholarship, ignorance or guesswork gives me a better education into the original music and a better foundation for decision-making than trying to start from the bare-nekkid notes and clothe them with what I think is scholarship (when it may only be imagination).
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-09-01 23:38
Lelia Loban wrote:
> No discourtesy to Mozart intended. I agree with you in
> principle, but as a practical matter, you can afford to presume
> because your presumptions are not presumptuous. You're
> qualified to edit these scores yourself. You're better
> qualified, in fact, than a lot of the people who do edit
> Mozart's scores. I'm not. Ergo, the best score for you may
> not be the best score for me.
If I'm reading Tony correctly, there's no good way to introduce what Tony is describing into a score through editing, no matter how good or qualified the editor is.
It occurred to me that thin notation is really alive and well in the 21st century, but it's in a place that at first blush seems quite far removed from Mozart---the jazz chart.
There's no amount of notation that can fully contain the "feel" of jazz rhythm and phrasing. A passage might be notated as nothing more than a string of straight eighth notes, but each note may have a different level of accent and duration that creates the "bounce" that one hears in bebop, for example. The "feel" of the music is never really notated, but skilled jazz musicians know the conventions--the performance practice, if you will--and know how to phrase the music properly in the appropriate jazz context (I say "appropriate" because jazz encompasses a lot of different styles with different conventions).
Just as I grew up in a house where jazz was frequently on the turntable (I learned how to scat sing that way), musicians of Mozart's day were no doubt immersed in the musical styles of their day from an early age (especially Mozart!) and were able to absorb the characteristic "bounce" of the classical style into their musical vocabulary with little effort. For them, thin notation was sufficient because the expressive vocabulary of the style came naturally to them (indeed, it was no doubt preferable--it's like scat singing--if you know the style you can sing that way, but to try to write down all those nonsense syllables [which are the articulations--the tongues and slurs, if you will--of scat singing] would be ridiculous). In fact, to them our thick notation might be a bit like trying to write out swing eighths as dotted or triplet rhythms--it might approximate jazz rhythm, but it's still not the same thing--in fact, if followed to the letter, it could even throw you off and make the music sound too mechanical and lifeless--too square. You simply can't notate all of it--much of what makes the music sound alive defies notation (and really, I think you can say this is true of all music--thinly notated music is just more honest about it).
I think Tony's point (if I'm reading him correctly--if not, at least he now knows where I've gone wrong ) is that although it is impossible to express everything in notation and editing, it IS possible to learn the "feel" of classical-era music in such a way that one can pick up a Mozart score and perform the music in an idiomatic way, just as the players in Mozart's day did and just as today's jazz players do with jazz music. You don't have to have everything explicitly spelled out to play in the correct style, because if you understand the style, you can come up with a whole assortment of "correct" ways to play the music. In fact, you may even decide to throw in a little improvisation, too.
In short, editing Mozart is for squares...you gotta DIG Mozart. 
Post Edited (2009-09-02 00:21)
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2009-09-02 11:08
I will try to ask my question again more directly-
How seriously can we take ANY of the articulation markings in ANY of the editions since we have no MS?
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2009-09-02 12:22
skygardener wrote:
>> I will try to ask my question again more directly: How seriously can we take ANY of the articulation markings in ANY of the editions since we have no MS?>>
What we have is 200 bars of the first movement in MS, namely the Winterthur fragment (WF); and the three editions of 1801 (B&H, André and Seiber) which differ only very slightly from what is in WF with regard to the sparse articulation they contain. Since they derive from Mozart's lost score, the upshot is that we can assume that Mozart's articulation marks in that score were equally sparse -- as was his wont. (Nobody TAKES OUT a composer's marks in producing an edition.)
Baerenreiter represents those sources pretty fairly. All other editions contain additional expression marks and articulations, by various performers.
I'd like to add, however, that one doesn't necessarily 'take seriously', in the sense I think you mean that phrase, all Mozart's OWN articulations -- or indeed, all his notes.
Tony
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The Clarinet Pages
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