 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Danny Boy
Date: 2006-05-24 15:48
The Mozart Concerto on a modern day basset horn in F?
I must be in a funny mode today I think...but have just been playing some basset horn and thinking back over a conversation I had with Michael Harris, who in turn had the conversation with Dame Thea King.
Dame Thea had apparently said she was longing to hear a performance of the concerto in G major "as the horn and flute writing works better for starters". Now seeing as we have the fragment/draft of the first movement of the basset horn concerto, which is pretty much the clarinet concerto but in G major I suppose we're justified in playing the whole work on basset horn in G and with orchestra in G major.
BUT, until I win the lottery and get Steve Fox to build me a basset horn in G...the idea is stuck. So, has anyone ever stuck the orchestra in G major, and put the whole clarinet part up a tone for basset horn in F?
Now I come to think of it...this solves the low B debate as well in one swoop, play the whole thing in totally the wrong key...and you've got the range you need, voila!!
Is it April 1st? Discuss...
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2006-05-24 15:58
When I get by basset horn back (which should be this eveing I hope) and add the thumb low D and C touches I'll give it a whirl.
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Author: Danny Boy
Date: 2006-05-24 16:05
I haven't been able to resist and have been having a go, the main trouble I have encountered is that crossing in to the altissimo register happens at the most unhelful moments, plenty of times in the slow movement for example.
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2006-05-24 16:06
Danny Boy wrote:
> Now seeing as we have the
> fragment/draft of the first movement of the basset horn
> concerto, which is pretty much the clarinet concerto but in G
> major I suppose we're justified in playing the whole work on
> basset horn in G and with orchestra in G major.
I suppose not. It changes the entire texture of the work.
Mozart never completed the fragment. He most certainly had a reason - we just don't know what the reason was.
You can play it on kazoo, too. It won't be K622. It might be interesting, it might be pretty, but it won't be the Concerto in A. It'll be a translation.
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Author: David Peacham
Date: 2006-05-24 16:08
I am unconvinced by the claim that the horn writing would be improved by the key change. I don't have the score to hand, but I assume that the horn parts are for handhorn in A in the outer movements and D in the slow movement.
Transposing down a tone would put them into G and C. All this means in practice is you change crooks.
It is generally agreed that the best handhorn crook is Eb, which is why most of Mozart's solo horn music is in that key. The higher crooks (like A and G) can sound a bit shrill. The lower crooks (like D and C) can sound muddy.
So the key change might make the outer movements sound a bit better, and the slow movement worse.
But suppose we are going to use modern valved horns, which didn't exist in Mozart's day, and which make completely the wrong sound. Then I see no reason to believe the key change will make any difference at all to a competent player.
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If there are so many people on this board unwilling or unable to have a civil and balanced discussion about important issues, then I shan't bother to post here any more.
To the great relief of many of you, no doubt.
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Author: Danny Boy
Date: 2006-05-24 16:11
I read somewhere (and have no evidence for this at all) that Stadler requested the change from basset horn to basset clarinet. I suppose the argument is that he did finish it, he just put it in A major. Looking at the fragment, it's extremely close to being K622, except it's missing two movement of course.
I'm not really of any solid opinion on this, just adding to the melting pot.
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Author: Danny Boy
Date: 2006-05-24 16:14
David I know absolute nothing about horn playing...so that's good to know. You're right with the keys of the horn parts.
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Author: rbell96
Date: 2006-05-24 16:21
Mark Charette said:
>You can play it on kazoo, too.
Funny you should mention that, I know someone who sounds like a kazoo when he plays k622!
Rob
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2006-05-24 16:39
I think I know who you mean, I don't rate her playing either.
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Author: LarryBocaner ★2017
Date: 2006-05-24 18:21
I had a nice converstion about this very subject with Christopher Hogwood when I played a Mozart festival with him a few years back. It is his theory that Mozart abandoned the G major version of K622 when Stadler no longer had access to a G bassett horn to play it on. (Perhaps he pawned it, sold it to pay gambling debts, who knows). Anyway, Hogwood finds the orchestral accompaniment much more friendly in G -- more open strings, better tessitura for horns etc.
The only G bassett horn music I ever got to play was one of the Mozart songs for three singers and three bassett horns. Although I consider myself quite fluent in "C" transposition (which is actually what I was doing playing a G part on an F instrument), it turned out to be a nasty task, given the Leblanc bassett's backwards key lineup for the lowest notes -- almost too much for my tiny brain to process!
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2006-05-24 20:55
LarryBocaner wrote:
> I had a nice converstion about this very subject with
> Christopher Hogwood when I played a Mozart festival with him a
> few years back. It is his theory that Mozart abandoned the G
> major version of K622 when Stadler no longer had access to a G
> bassett horn to play it on. (Perhaps he pawned it, sold it to
> pay gambling debts, who knows). Anyway, Hogwood finds the
> orchestral accompaniment much more friendly in G -- more open
> strings, better tessitura for horns etc.
But the question still is, Larry: would the orchestral accompaniment be the same if the work had been completed for basset horn?
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Author: Danny Boy
Date: 2006-05-24 21:50
The first movement is the same, with gaping holes admittedly, but the framework of K.622 is there in the basset horn concerto fragment.
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Author: LarryBocaner ★2017
Date: 2006-05-24 22:22
Well, Mark, the accompaniment in A that we all know seems to be nothing more than a traspositition of the accompaniment sketched in the G major fragment; that being the case I don't think it's too audacious to suppose that the same might hold true for the rest of the Concerto. I'm not pretending to be a musicologist in all of this, but merely transmitting the essence of a conversation I had with Chris Hogwood, who is a highly respected conductor cum musicologist (Cambridge University, I believe).
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