 The Clarinet BBoard
|
Author: Klose ★2017
Date: 2020-06-06 19:32
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SvCMyxy3hw
In this video, the player ERIC HOEPRICH played the concerto with a basset note B (at 10:29, bar 295 in the first movement, with the help of his legs). This is very interesting, as to my knowledge, no editions so far contain this note in their basset clarinet solo part (NMA, Henle, Schott etc.) and also no historical evidence existed for an instrument which could play this note (see Lawson's book).
Maybe someone with great period instrument playing knowledge can shed light on this?
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Liquorice
Date: 2020-06-06 22:15
After Stadler played the Concerto in Lübeck in 1794 a critic described Stadler's clarinet as having an additional 5 notes. This was either a mistake, or it implied that a low B was also possible. In the sketch in the Riga programme (also 1794) it looks like there is an open tole hole on the elbow which connects the amore bell with the main body of the instrument. When Eric Hoeprich made his reconstruction based on this sketch, he discovered that closing this hole with his knee produced a low B. It may be a bit far-fetched the imagine that Stadler actually did this, but there are a few passages that would make musical sense if played in this lower octave, eg. in the 3rd movement bar 147.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Klose ★2017
Date: 2020-06-07 00:18
"a critic described Stadler's clarinet as having an additional 5 notes"
Liquorice, could you please tell me the source of this?
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: donald
Date: 2020-06-07 01:42
I saw Eric give a lecture on this many years past, and as I recall he went to great lengths to make it clear he was just experimenting and didn't intend to suggest anyone should take it as gospel that that was the "correct" way to play it. His rational was that Stadler was experimenting, so he might also.
The review describing "5 notes" is a well known source that I can't quote off the top of my head, but when I'm back from rehearsal I'll see if I can find it.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Liquorice
Date: 2020-06-07 02:04
Klose: Hoeprich writes about the critic from the Lübecker Anzeiger in his book "The Clarinet" and cites Pamela Poulin's 1977 MA thesis as his reference. You can download that thesis here:
https://urresearch.rochester.edu/institutionalPublicationPublicView.action?institutionalItemId=5327
I've looked through it, but honestly haven't yet found any mention of the Lübeck performance or the review...
Hoeprich writes in his notes that several basset horns from this period also have the extra tone hole, some even with a key. And that Süssmayr's opera "Der Wildfang" has a low B in the basset horn part.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Liquorice
Date: 2020-06-07 02:09
Albert Rice in "From the Clarinet D'Amour to the Contra Bass" also mentions the use of low B in "Der Wildfang". He says that these large resonance holes, like the one seen on the the engraving of Stadler's basset clarinet, are also found on the basset horns of Hammig (Vienna) and Strobach (Karlsbad).
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Cdh
Date: 2020-06-07 04:23
Yes, the low B is very likely. The strong internal evidence is outlined here:
https://mozartbassetclarinet.wordpress.com/two-low-bs-or-or-not-low-bs/
The reasons why it was practical to build the instrument in that design are investigated on some other pages at the same website:
https://mozartbassetclarinet.wordpress.com/home/
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Cdh
Date: 2020-06-07 10:04
To follow up from Liquorice:
I think the reference Hoeprich probably meant to cite (on page 116) regarding the Lubeck concert >announcement< was:
Poulin: An Updated Report on New Information Regarding Stadler's Concert Tour of Europe and Two Early Examples of the Basset Clarinet, The Clarinet Feb/March 1995.
I don't think Lubeck is mentioned in Poulin's thesis (thanks Liquorice).
Hoeprich writes that the notice was written by a critic after a concert in Lubeck. In fact it was an announcement, or advertisement, before the concert, which therefore means it originated in some way with Stadler, who is unlikely to have been mistaken about his own instrument.
Both Poulin and Harald Strebel have documented two advertisements in Lubeck which mention the five extra notes. The second one is also a notice of postponement ON the day of the concert. A third advertisement is for a second concert, and mentions Stadler's invention, but omits the detail about five extra notes - presumably so he had room to mention the singer who appeared with him, Madamoiselle Loewe.
Pamela Poulin's book "In the Footsteps of Mozart’s Clarinetist: Anton Stadler (1753-1812)" was published by Pendragon in 2019. I'm sure all the info is in there too.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: JohnP
Date: 2020-06-07 12:00
The relevant notice from the Lübecker Anzeigen is quoted in Harald Strebel’s book, Anton Stadler, Wirken und Umfeld des Mozart-Klarinettisten.
Dieses Instrument unterscheidet sich von den sonst gewöhnlichen durch seinen besonderen Bau, durch einen etwas sanftern Ton, als auch durch einen Umfang von vier Oktaven, und hat noch fünf Töne mehr in der Tiefe, als die sonst üblichen Clarinetten.
Any non German speakers will have to use Google translate, sorry.
Harald Strebel’s book gets a bit of a panning in Michael Lorenz’s blog here
http://michaelorenz.blogspot.com/
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Klose ★2017
Date: 2020-06-07 13:33
Thank you all for the efforts!
Cdh: By contrast, I believe the low B is very unlikely. The most important source for the reconstruction is the AMZ review, which clearly wrote that the music is written for a clarinet which can play low C, and if there is a low B (and the reviewer claimed he had the original score on his table), the reviewer would have mentioned it.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: davyd
Date: 2020-06-07 15:11
If Stadler and company could somehow know that in 2020 we would still be discussing what they were up to in 1794, I wonder what they would say?
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Cdh
Date: 2020-06-07 15:49
Klose, that is a very good point.
But our AMZ reviewer was supposedly in possession of a >copy< , of the score, not the necessarily the autograph. In fact if one reads very carefully, the reviewer merely states that that have this splendid work in full score before them. ("Dieses herrliche Konzert in Partitur vor sich liegen hat." ) In the concluding section of the review - the part that lists the alterations - the reviewer doesn't actually say how they know that the concerto was written for an extended clarinet, it remains very possible that they had this information from another source, which was not their score. The whole point about the reviewer having a score was that it enabled them to illustrate the review with musical excerpts which included the canonic version of the theme in "duodez(ime)" (actually at the 11th, not the 12th) and imitation in double counterpoint.
The reviewer may also have been prejudiced by the fact that the range down to C had been mentioned in a string of publications and over the previous decade. Very easy to overlook what you are not looking for, and hard to contradict what you have already been told. Clearly the instrument was >designed< to go down to low C, and this is what was publicised - but this is not to deny the fact that the instrument could play a low B.
And that is the point of considering internal evidence: if the the music itself contains evidence, then maybe the most important source isn't the AMZ after all. There are obvious omissions in the AMZ list and possibly an error. Towards the end of such an extensive and carefully written review one does detect a little impatience... Could the reviewer have missed something? Maybe...
However, if you read the review with a copy of the B & H clarinet part in front of you, then it seems like their list of altered passages might have been influenced by the look of the part, and not by perusal of a score with basset notes.
I don't think it has been generally observed that the reviewer shows somewhat specialist knowledge of the clarinet. Right near the beginning of the review he notes the difficulty of the passage on "line 13 of the first page" (bar 79ff), surely one of the biggest challenges for the period clarinet in the whole work.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Liquorice
Date: 2020-06-07 16:21
Firstly, I believe that we need to move away from the idea that the notes that Mozart wrote on the page are some kind of Sacred Text, which may in no way be changed for fear of eternal damnation. Mozart would have expected his soloists to adapt what he wrote, highlighting their abilities (or the abilities of their instruments) and the emotional affect of the musical passages. So what Mozart wrote (which we don't even have) and what Stadler played, may not always be the same thing.
For an example of the kind of adaptions Mozart would have expected, check out his own embellishment of the vocal line of this aria:
https://dme.mozarteum.at/DME/nma/nmapub_srch.php?l=2
(Edit: I realise that my link only takes you to the main page of the NMA. You need to type 294 into the KV field to get to the aria that I was referring to)
Secondly, we should remember that the instrument was in a period of development and that Mozart was keen to make use of new instrumental innovations. In Robert Adelson's article "Reading between the (Ledger) Lines: Performing Mozart's Music for the Basset Clarinet", he mentions Mozart's fortepiano pedal board, which allowed Mozart to play an extra two octaves below the normal range using his feet. Even if Mozart didn't notate pitches of this range in his piano works, he would have certainly made use of these "basset notes" on his piano in performances, otherwise he wouldn't have bothered to have the large and heavy piece of equipment transported to his concerts. This leads Adelson to speculate (I think quite justifiably) that once Stadler had the possibility to play more notes on his instruments, he would probably have used them. So when he went on tours playing "Parto, parto" and the Quintet or Concerto using his basset clarinets, he would hardly have taken another set of "regular" clarinets with him to play other works on. The basset instruments were now his regular instruments so he would have played works like the Kegelstatt Trio on his B-flat basset clarinet and it is not unlikely that he would have made use of the extended lower range wherever he saw fit.
If, at some point (before or after Mozart's death) Stadler figured out that he could produce a low B on his instrument, he may very well have decided to use it in Mozart's Concerto. And whether Mozart wrote or even sanctioned these notes or not, I'm sure he did this without even a flicker of bad conscience.
So Klose, I think the answer to your question of whether there is a basset note B in the Mozart Concerto may well be: "If Stadler played it".
Post Edited (2020-06-07 17:55)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Klose ★2017
Date: 2020-06-07 16:58
Cdh, thank you again for your detailed comments. I really appreciate it. However, I still believe that the reviewer indeed had a somehow authentic score (otherwise he was too bold to list these alterations), and that a low B, as the lowest note in the solo part, is quite noticeable and therefore unlikely to be ignored. Of course, I am only talking about possibilities here and my opinion is also subjective.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Cdh
Date: 2020-06-21 13:57
Thanks for this discussion everyone.
I remain skeptical that our AMZ reviewer actually had a copy of the score with a basset clarinet part. If you read the review closely you will see what I mean. Unfortunately this misconception has been perpetuated in a number of otherwise excellent references. Since playing a passage an octave higher or lower is nowhere regarded as a form of ornamentation or embellishment, the investigation of the original text remains an important first step, from which real embellishment may depart. The example noted by Liquorice illustrates the point.
I have outlined the reasons for my skepticism here:
https://mozartbassetclarinet.wordpress.com/more-about-the-amz-review/
Since the reviewer's statement that the instrument extended to low c cannot be taken at face value, the question of a low b must ultimately be decided on internal evidence.
For anyone considering purchasing a modern basset clarinet it is worth some serious consideration. Period players nowadays will probably opt for the Riga design and therefore get the low b thrown in for free. Pre Riga period instruments won't have the low b - but there are only two low b's, and the work is about more than two notes...if you have it - use it, if not, then come up with a musical alternative.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
The Clarinet Pages
|
 |
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
