 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: CuriousClarinet
Date: 2012-02-21 15:00
I've always wondered where a clarinetist's mind might possibly wander if too many of her classes were cancelled on any given day... Now I know.
Hypothetically speaking, if someone were to travel back in time to October 16, 1791, and listen to the premiere of Mozart's clarinet concerto, what would it sound like? I was looking up the history of the clarinet, and according to Wikipedia, (yes, I know, not the world's most credible source) a clarinet with a register key was invented around the turn of the 18th century. It says, “The classical clarinet of Mozart's day typically had eight finger holes and five keys." So my question is, besides the obvious one about how Anton Stadler even managed playing that piece with only five keys, how different would a clarinet back then sound? Would we even recognize it as a clarinet, or would it sound more similar to a trumpet, as the name implies? How appalled by the intonation would we be, considering how far clarinet makers have come over the years? Or would it sound comparable to everyone's favorite recording of the Mozart Concerto they know today?
*sigh* If only I had a time machine…
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Author: Laurelin
Date: 2012-02-21 16:37
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWBhvOkdPg4
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRnOXAvwZt4
They seem to sound much the same, but look really nifty.
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Author: Trevor M
Date: 2012-02-21 18:53
I don't think it's possible to really know how it sounded, even if we play it on actual instruments of the era.
You may have heard recordings of brass bands on wax cylinders, or very early recordings of clarinet or violin or voice, where there are all sorts of ideas about vibrato and phrasing and 'good taste' that are so foreign to the contemporary mindset – and this after barely a century – that you can't really reproduce them. Now, extend that effect by three hundred years and compound it with the question of local styles, and the fact that we don't really have any surviving reeds from that era so we don't know what would have passed for 'good' tone. It's fun to think about it, but I don't think we should delude ourselves.
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Author: rtmyth
Date: 2012-02-21 20:33
Neidich is on utube with a similar one, I believe.
richard smith
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2012-02-21 22:23
While we can always hear what the instruments sound like nowadays, we'll never know for certain what the players of that time sounded like when they played them.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: CuriousClarinet
Date: 2012-02-21 23:33
...Well, that's rather depressing... they should have invented recording devices much earlier. =p I wonder what Mozart would think of today's interpretations of all his music!
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2012-02-22 13:37
>> I wonder what Mozart would think of today's interpretations of all his music!
>>
That might depend on whether or not he got paid.
Hmmm ... Under international copyright law today, the expiration date of the composer's copyright depends upon the date of the composer's death. So if someone invents a time machine and brings Mozart into the present, does he still count as dead and is his music now in the public domain? Or, since he's demonstrably alive and well in the present (despite being really most sincerely dead in the past), does his music get sucked back into copyright?
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: Chris P
Date: 2012-02-22 13:50
Just shows how mucking around with time travel can get messy!
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: chris moffatt
Date: 2012-02-22 13:59
As you probably know by now the concerto was written for Anton Stadler for performance on the basset clarinet which was the result of collaboration between Stadler and Theodor Lotz - an instrument maker and clarinettist. I believe the basset clarinet Stadler played was keyed in A so the fingering would have been more difficult than what we are used to but not impossible. The instrument would have had most of the keywork on the bottom stack to provide the extended lower range. Also it was made as a straight pipe rather than the angled shape of the typical basset horn. From pictures I have seen and notes on its construction I don't think it would have sounded greatly different from more modern german clarinets esp. of the C19.
There are a number of recordings of the concerto that feature the basset clarinet. By David Shifrin, Sabine Mayer and others and, of course, the recording that may have triggered all the interest by Christopher Hogwood and the AAM (featuring, if I am not mistaken, Tony Pay).
BTW Mozart also called for basset clarinet in the instrumentation for 'La clemeza di Tito'.
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Author: davyd
Date: 2012-02-22 14:27
In his 1982 short story "Gianni", Robert Silverberg explored bringing Giovanni Pergolesi forward from a few days before his 1736 death into 2008. (The scientists working this experiment decided that Mozart would have been too much trouble.) Pergolesi experiences the pop music of the day (not so very different from what it actually turned out to be), and mayhem ensues.
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2012-02-24 15:48
When I get my time machine, I'll be making a lot of stops along the way from chaleumeau to last week. I'll take along my travel dictionaries
I'll want to meet Stadler, Baermann, Baermann, Muhlfield, Quantz, ... and their colleagues.
... and I'll want to take along my quiver of instruments, a spare mouthpiece and a case of reeds.
I'll be gone a good long time.
Bob Phillips
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2012-02-24 21:17
Only problem is you may be able to time travel for years, but when you come back to the present time, everyone else will be the same age they were the very moment you set off.
If you choose to come back in the future, everyone will be wondering where you disappeared off to for so long without any reason, so that could take a lot of explaining.
But think of the collection of rare instruments (and all of them in brand new condition) you'd have!
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2012-02-25 15:47
Ooops Chris!
I forgot to include some walkin' around money in my time travel kit.
Bob Phillips
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Author: clarinetist04
Date: 2012-02-25 15:59
The Spohr Concerti are what amaze me - how in the world did Hermstedt play these pieces on turn of the century (18th to 19th) clarinets? Those pieces are hard enough on our modern systems, let alone on clarinets back then.
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