 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: new guy
Date: 2001-02-08 16:40
hi im working on the mozart clarinet concerto and i want to have a good recording. What r ur opinions on the "best" recording of this piece? thanks.
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Author: beejay
Date: 2001-02-08 18:02
I like Thea King's recording using basset clarinet. It's just been reissued by Hyperion. You have to make up your own mind about what is best, just as you have to decide for yourself how a piece should be interpreted.
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Author: Ken
Date: 2001-02-08 21:48
No question, the Marcellus recording is definitive
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2001-02-08 22:31
Definitive of what?
Definitive in the terms of Marcellus' style and beauty of playing - I'd agree.
Definitive in terms of "Mozartean" music - I'd say not.
That's always the rouble with these sorts of things - what does "definitive" mean? There's no "perfect" recording - which is what makes music so invigorating!
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Author: Eoin McAuley
Date: 2001-02-09 10:54
There were three different versions of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto:
1. The original, written by Mozart for Basset Clarinet in A. This was lost in the 18th century.
2. Mozart's arrangement of (1) for normal A clarinet.
3. A reconstruction of (1) by 20th century musicians, based on (2), a fragment of a preliminary sketch of (1) (the Winterthur fragment) and some educated guesswork.
There are recordings of both 2 and 3 available. You should have a recording of each. I'd personally recommend Brymer's recording of 2 and Collins's recording of 3 as being excellent, but I would not claim they are "the best".
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2001-02-09 12:52
I don't remember ever hearing about (2) above (then we'd have a 622a and 622b). Where did you read that? I understood that the publishers had it re-arranged as far as we know - Mozart did not arrange it.
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Author: Ed
Date: 2001-02-09 15:35
This can be a topic of much debate & everyone has their favorites. One of my fellow students swears that Sabine Meyer's recording is the greatest while I prefer Karl Leister, Brymer or Marcellus. They are all different in terms of technicality, color and musicality - and that is what is great! As Beejay says you have to decide for yourself - I think that is the key to "discovering your own sound".
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Author: Cathy
Date: 2001-02-09 16:06
just to put my two cents in... I particularly like Sabine Meyer's recording on basset clarinet, but if you're looking to compare it to what you are going to play then you might want to also look at recordings done on a regular A clarinet
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Author: Ken Shaw
Date: 2001-02-09 17:10
The Marcellus recording is essential. It's a perfectly done example of that particular style of playing. Also, it's available on a super-bargain price Sony CD.
One of my favorites is by Eric Hoeprich with Franz Bruggen and the Orchestra of the 18th Century, on period instruments. They get everything just right.
Among the out of print recordings, my absolute ideal is the first recording Gervase de Peyer made with Colin Davis. His later recordings, which have been reissued, are not too shabby, either.
I'm not fond of the Thea King recording. She played a prototype Selmer basset clarinet that, at least when I tried it, was not ready for public performance. At least to my ears, her technical struggles with the instrument occupy all her attention, leaving little for music making.
There have been about 150 recordings over the last century. I've managed to collect most of them. There's no one best. The music is better than anyone can play it.
Best regards.
Ken Shaw
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Author: graham
Date: 2001-02-09 17:12
Colin Lawson on a Bangham reconstructed classical basset clarinet (Nimbus) is very good. I like the old Prinz recording which seems to me to go to the soul of the music. For a very different but good account Klocker is worthwhile (I have his earlier Telefunken recording).
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Author: Bob Sparkman
Date: 2001-02-10 01:48
I've always admired Harold Wright's understated approach to this masterwork. Something like a journeyman's respect for the logic and structure of fine craftmanship which unites composer and player in a way that best serves both.
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Author: beecee
Date: 2001-02-10 21:51
The best IMHO
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra - Karl Bohm
on the Deutsche Grammophone label.
Alfred Prinz plays clarinet.
The CD also has the Oboe and Bassoon concertos as well.
I think this was recorded around 1974.
429 816-2
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Author: Eoin McAuley
Date: 2001-02-12 07:04
Thanks, Mark! I always thought it was Mozart himself that produced the arrangement for A clarinet.
Does K622 apply only to this arrangement or does the 20th century Basset Clarinet reconstruction also get called K622?
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2001-02-12 13:05
K622 is the label for a concerto that we don't have a manuscript for; the version(s) we currently play on an A were created before we knew about a basset clarinet. The reconstructions using basset clarinet are probably (just probably - we don't know for sure) closer to the original version - there are some places in the version for A clarinet where it makes much more sense for a basset than an A clarinet.
A bit more from Keith Koons' article on the ICA site,
http://www.clarinet.org/Research.htm - Comparing Published Editions of Mozarts Clarinet Concerto, K. 622:
"To understand why there are so many editions, some background is in order. The autograph score, Mozart's final product, has been lost. He finished the work in the fall of 1791, and it is assumed that Anton Stadler, the Viennese clarinetist and basset horn player for whom Mozart wrote the concerto, performed it in Prague in October 1791. After Mozart's death, Stadler took the piece on his concert tour of Europe and Russia. Recent research by Pamela Poulin has discovered the earliest documented performance of the concerto in Riga, Latvia in 1794.1 In 1801, the work was published by the three firms of André, Sieber, and Breitkopf & Härtel. However, these publications were not identical to the original: An 1802 review of the work stated that it was originally written for a special A clarinet extended to play to low C.[2] An anonymous hand had arranged and edited the original, changing low register passages so that it would be playable by a normal A clarinet. All that remains from Mozart's hand is 199 bars of an early sketch of the work featuring basset horn in G as the solo instrument. Known as K. 621b, this sketch is reproduced as part of the Neue Mozart Ausgabe volume for the clarinet concerto.[3] A more detailed account of the concerto's composition and publication may be found in the excellent book, Mozart: Clarinet Concerto, by Colin Lawson.[4]
Several editions have been made with the basset clarinet in mind, attempting to restore the missing low register passages. The name "basset clarinet" has been given to a clarinet extended to low C. Modem basset clarinets are currently available from several major instrument manufacturers."
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Author: Hiroshi
Date: 2001-02-13 03:58
is my favorite as far as limited to those players whose good recordings are
still available today. To my regret those recordings by Urach, Cahuzac,and Kell
are not so good although original sound might have been quite different.
By the way, in Japan recording companies sell European clarinetists'
recordings mostly.
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