A facsimile of the review which appeared in the March 17, 1802 edition of the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung (AMZ) has been reproduced in the Henle edition of the clarinet concerto. You can also access a digital scan of an original copy on the on the digiPress website of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek:
https://digipress.digitale-sammlungen.de/issue/bsb10528005_00211_u001
An English translation made by William McColl appeared in The Clarinet, 9/2 (1982) and is reproduced in Lawson, Colin, Mozart: Clarinet Concerto, Cambridge Music Handbooks Cambridge, 1996. The translations used here are my own.
Summary:
A common misconception about the AMZ review, even to be found in the preface to the Henle edition (2003), is that the anonymous author had a copy of the full score which showed the original basset clarinet part. It is unfortunate that this claim has been so persistently repeated, notably in Eric Hoeprich’s excellent book ‘The Clarinet’ (The Yale Musical Instrument Series, New Haven and London, 2008, on page 111). Part of the problem lies in the fact that as clarinettists we are so accustomed to skipping over the bulk of the review, so that the ideas at the beginning and end are easily conflated. The facts:
- the reviewer had a score
- the reviewer mentions that the work was written from an instrument which extended to low c,
- an incomplete list of examples is given,
- the reviewer expresses the wish that the work had been published in its original form.
becomes:
- “the reviewer had a score which went down to low c”.
This article proposes a close and exacting reading of the whole review, and concludes that while the reviewer may have had a score with the basset part, it is by no means certain.
Primary purpose of the review
Imagine we are writing a review of a work which we value as a supreme masterpiece, and we wish to impress this upon our readers. Obviously, we cannot begin by simply referring to the new issued set of parts which are under review. It would be less than impressive to say “Well, I have a new set of parts and it’s a great piece.” Instead, the author begins with a rhetorical flourish:
Rec., der dieses herrliche Konzert in Partitur vor sich liegen hat, kann allen guten Klarinettisten die fröhliche Gewissheit ertheilen, das kein anderer, als Mozart – nur er es geschrieben haben kann; das es folglich in Ansehung der schönen, regelmässigen and geschmackvollen Komposition das erste Klarinett-Konzert in der Welt sein muss; den so viel dem Rec. bewusst ist existiert nur dies eine von ihm.
The reviewer, who has this splendid concerto in full score before him, can offer all good clarinet players the happy assurance that none other than Mozart – for only he could have written it – and that consequently in view of the beautiful, well composed and tasteful composition must surely be the first clarinet concerto in the world, in a far as the current reviewer is aware there is only one from him.
An impressive opening indeed, but without making any claim that the score is the autograph, or of any particular special provenance, a claim which would have heightened the impact further. The fact that the reviewer has a score is primarily for the purpose of demonstrating the ‘beautiful, well composed and tasteful’ qualities of the concerto, which (as his readers know) cannot be gleaned from a set of parts. The evaluation of the work from a score is altogether more persuasive, and lends the reviewer an air of erudition. It also enabled him 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. Further into the review, the author makes special mention of the “need to reduce the examples to two staves, in order to make space”, subtly reminding the reader, perhaps with pride, that he is able to appreciate the masterpiece in full score.
The review continues for two pages in a rather poetically extolling vein (which for now I will skip over, aware why most readers are reading this), before one paragraph and four small, single stave examples are devoted to the adaption from the basset clarinet. It is introduced almost as an afterthought, although clearly it wasn’t:
Schliesslich findet Recensent noch nötig zu bemerken, dass Mozart dieses Konzert für eine Klarinette, die unten bis ins c geht, geschrieben hat.
Lastly, the reviewer finds it necessary to observe that Mozart wrote this concerto for an instrument which goes down to c.
The purpose of this section seems to be to shield Mozart (and thereby the publisher) from the accusation that the concerto was not well composed for the clarinet, a characteristic mentioned in the very opening sentence of the review. It was generally considered a virtue that compositions should be well composed for the instruments, and reporting on his aspect was naturally an important part of any review. This section also reasserts the authority of the reviewer who has “inside information”, but who does not reveal the source.
Examination of the reviewer’s list
An examination of the reviewer’s brief list of adaptions shows that all the examples but one are relatively easy to spot if you already happen to know that the work has been adapted. They involve broken contours or passages in the throat register (which Mozart and most other composers would pass through, but not specifically feature). Most tellingly there are bars which we might have expected the reviewer to mention which he doesn’t. Chief among these must be the arpeggio in bar 145, which does not have a broken appearance, but is early enough in the proceedings that the reviewer ought not have run out of patience. The reviewer only notes the alterations from the next bar, bar 146, where the broken arpeggio makes the adaption obvious. At the beginning of the same passage, from bar 134-7, the reviewer fails to mention the change from low D to F# on every fourth beat, and also the second beat of bar 137. This is also presumably because the passage lacks the broken appearance. If we consider that Mozart’s notation of this passage was in the bass clef, and that this notation would have been preserved by copyists (naturally, to avoid ledger lines), then the beginning of this passage, coming after a rest, would be striking to anyone reading from a score with the basset part. Almost as telling is the fact that the very first instance of basset notes, in bar 91, goes unmentioned, although two further instances of this motive in the development are (bars 206-7, 208-9).
Already we must have suspicions that the reviewer is writing principally from the newly printed clarinet part, and this can be corroborated by following the review with our own copy of the edition at hand. Circling all the passages mentioned in the review, we notice that they are all pictorially noticeable. With only one exception they occur very close to the beginning of a line, or at the end of a line where the beginning of the next line is also an example. The exception is bar 56 of the Adagio, which lies conspicuously in the very centre of the page, directly under the previous example. Now, if I had a copy of the score with a basset part, wouldn’t it be simpler to work from that, using the changes of clef as an easy means of identification? And that process, albeit a little more involved, would be quite efficient, and result in examples that were more evenly distributed on the pages of the clarinet part. Given the option of this method, surely our reviewer would not have been so expedient as to go directly to the printed part and rely on memory.
There is, however, one small fly in the ointment, and that is the penultimate example in our reviewer’s list (Rondo: bars 232-4, incorrectly identified in Lawson as ‘probably’ bars 99 –105). While it does immediately precede an easily spotted example at the top of the next page (melodic passage in the throat register), there is otherwise nothing particularly suspicious about this phrase, except perhaps for the rising octave created with the end of the previous phrase. Placing the phrase an octave lower creates a texture completely exceptional in Mozart: the soloist plays in the middle of the accompanying strings, between the violas and the first violins. Mozart’s usual practice, in this concerto as well as more generally, is to keep the textures clear, especially when a singer or instrument is in a weaker part of the range.
This faces us with two distinct possibilities: either the reviewer really did have a score with the basset part and Mozart wrote something quite against his usual practice, or the reviewer has made a mistake in nominating these bars. These bars do actually work in the lower octave (despite being the only melodic phrase in the entire work to hover entirely in this part of the range), so internal evidence cannot completely rule out the first possibility. There is a possible explanation for the reviewer making a mistake. Since this is the second appearance of this music in the rondo, our reviewer may have accidentally compared this phrase with bar 103, which is near the beginning of the third lowest line on the previous (and facing) page of the clarinet part. On balance, it seems that this one example can neither prove or disprove the contention that the reviewer had a score with the basset part.
Omissions from the list:
It remains to ask whether there are omissions in the reviewer’s list so glaring that they cast doubt on the claim to a score with the basset part. This is a difficult area, since what is obvious to one person may not be obvious to another. However, one extensive passage in the low register which the reviewer should surely have nominated is the passage in the rondo commencing on the upbeat to bar 146 and extending a full 12 bars (the orchestral context makes this quite clear). The basset version would have all been notated in bass clef, and must have extended over at least two or three lines of a score, meaning the reviewer would have to have missed at least two or three iterations of the bass clef, as well as the reinstated treble clef. This passage should have remained in the memory, even if in the end the reviewer chose to compile the list from the printed clarinet part. (In the printed part this even occurs at the beginning of the line.) But because this passage is wholly up an octave, there were no tell-tale signs which would have alerted the reviewer.
Following the press release
By the time of this review, Stadler had toured extensively and the extended range of the clarinet had been mentioned in string of publications. Clearly the instrument was designed to go down to low C, and this is what was publicised. But this should not deny the fact that as a by-product (of the design and tuning process), the instrument could also play a low B, an obvious possibility which most players would discover within five minutes of playing, of which Mozart was doubtless aware. (When seated the challenge is sometimes to avoid accidentally closing the vent hole). In mentioning that the instrument for which the concerto was written extended to low C, the reviewer was simply repeating the press release, so to speak, which reflected that the whole intention was that the instrument should have the tonic as its lowest tone in its home key of C major. Being able to play the low B, the leading note, is much less useful, and was not the objective, even if it might occasionally be exploited.
Towards the end of the review, the author express the wish that the work had been printed with the original version:
Da nun aber bis jetzt solche Klarinetten, die unten bis c gehen, noch immer unter die seltenen Instrumente gerechnet werden müssen, so ist man den Herausgebern für diese Versetzungen und Veränderungen für die gewöhnliche Klarinette allerdings Dank schuldig, ob da Konzert gleich nicht dadurch gewonnen hat. Vielleicht wäre es eben so gut gewesen, es ganz nach dem ursprünglichen Original herauszugeben, und diese Versetzungen und Veränderungen allenfalls durch kleinere Noten zu bemerken.
Since up to the present time such clarinets, which descend to low c, must be counted among the rarer instruments, one must be grateful to the publishers for these octave transpositions and adaptions for the regular clarinet, even if it [the concerto] is not exactly improved thereby. Perhaps its would have been well to publish it exactly according to the original, with the transpositions and adaptions in each case given in small notes.
We might read this as confirmation that the reviewer had a score with the basset part, because he seems to assume that printing it in such a way was a possibility. But in 1802 it may not have occurred to the reviewer that the original score and solo part was already missing, and in any case Anton Stadler was still alive, and could be asked about the original part. Since the AMZ review would have been widely read, it is surprising that no one seems to have followed up on the reviewer’s suggestion.
Implications for the use of the low B
If Mozart did in fact write low B’s it would be expecting too much of our reviewer to have spotted them for several very good reasons:
• he had a preconception that the instrument went to low C,
• there are only two B’s in the whole work,
• the two passages occur in the middle of a line in the B & H print: the reviewer was evidently was losing patience at the end, preferring to quote examples which were at the beginning or end of a page to avoid having to count and quote a line number,
• he was perhaps not in possession of a score with the basset part.
We may therefore turn to internal evidence from the score for the possibility of low B’s.
KV 622: Two (low) B’s or or not low B’s ?
C.H. June, 2020
Historical Clarinets 